Producer and singer The-Dream is accused of rape and sexual assault in a lawsuit filed by his former protégé

Singer and producer The-Dream is accused of rape and sexual abuse in a lawsuit filed by his former protégé.

Chanaaz Mangroe, 33, who performed under the name Channii Monroe, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claiming the hitmaker lured her into an abusive and sexually violent relationship while promising to help her launch her career as an artist.

The-Dream’s behavior, which allegedly continued for about a year after she met him in 2015, continues to affect Mangroe and hinder her career efforts, the lawsuit says.

“Deciding to speak out about the trauma I survived was one of the most difficult decisions of my life, but ultimately, what Dream did to me has made it impossible to live the life I envisioned and pursue my goals as a singer and songwriter,” she said in a statement through her attorneys Douglas H. Wigdor and Meredith Firetog.

“Eventually, my silence became too painful and I realized that I needed to tell my story in order to heal,” she continued. “I hope that by doing so, I can also help others and prevent future horrific abuse.”

An agent for The-Dream, whose real name is Terius Adamu Ya Gesteelde-Diamant, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Mangroe said in the lawsuit that at the time she met The-Dream, a top producer for Beyoncé, Rihanna and other artists, she was 23 and working in the U.S. on an international visa from the Netherlands.

It is alleged that an employee of The-Dream contacted her through social media and, after sending him samples of her work, she was invited to join the producer in Atlanta. According to the lawsuit, she flew there to meet him in January 2015.

Mangroe “hoped to make her big break as a singer and songwriter,” the lawsuit says. Instead, she was lured “into an abusive, violent and manipulative relationship filled with physical assault, brutal sexual confrontations and horrific psychological manipulation.”

It alleges that The-Dream made false promises to Mangroe, telling her he would fund the extension of her international visa and write hit songs for her if she became part of his “sanctuary,” which he described as “stronger than a marital bond because it was about ‘art’.”

“In reality, Dream used Ms. Mangroe for his base desires, which manifested themselves in violent sexual acts and vicious psychological torture,” the document states.

In one incident mentioned in the lawsuit, the producer allegedly locked Mangroe in a dark room while they were in a recording studio and “violently” had sex with her before leaving her alone for hours. He later returned “to have sex with her again and demand that she tell him she loved him,” the lawsuit says.

Mangroe, still hoping for her big break, tried to convince herself that the sex was consensual, the lawsuit says.

The-Dream also controlled Mangroe’s stay in the United States, tracked her location, called and texted her to find out where she was, and had a key to her hotel room “so he could enter at any time and without notice,” the lawsuit says.

It goes on to say that the producer forced her to drink excessive amounts of alcohol, recorded a sexual experience and threatened to share it with others, and physically abused her. In one incident, he allegedly choked her so hard that “she believes she may have lost consciousness at one point,” it says.

According to the lawsuit, the producer forced Mangroe to have sex in a movie theater while another man presumably watched. That same night, he allegedly raped her in the back of a delivery truck, the lawsuit says.

Mangroe was eventually signed to Contra Paris LLC, The-Dream’s record label, in 2015 and the producer arranged a distribution deal with Epic Records. The suit alleges that Contra encouraged his behavior and that Mangroe raised her concerns with an Epic executive but was told to “find a way to work with Dream again.” Contra and Epic are both named as defendants.

NBC News has reached out to Sony Music Entertainment, which owns Epic, for comment. Efforts to find contact information for Contra were unsuccessful.

In July 2016, Mangroe was informed that she had been dropped from the label.

Mangroe’s lawyers Wigdor and Firetog said the lawsuit was “another horrific example of how men in the music industry abuse their power and influence to manipulate and harm others.”

Wigdor and Firetog represented singer Cassie Ventura in her lawsuit accusing Sean “Diddy” Combs of rape and abuse.

“Dream, like Sean Combs did with Ms. Ventura and others, exploited his position as a well-known recording artist and producer to subject Ms. Mangroe to vicious physical, psychological and sexual abuse,” the lawyers said in a joint statement.

“Although she will never fully recover from what he and his supporters did to her, her willingness to speak out now is a testament to her extraordinary strength,” they continued. “We are honored to represent her.”