Jimmie Allen Says He Contemplated Suicide After Sexual Assault Lawsuit: 'Whole World Had Just Collapsed'

Jimmie Allen is opening up about a dark period he faced after he was sued for sexual assault in May 2023.

The country singer’s former manager dropped her lawsuit against him last month — but in a new video shared to YouTube, Allen says that in the immediate aftermath of the suit, he contemplated suicide as a means of providing financially for his family.

The “Freedom Was a Highway” singer, 38, says he felt as though “the whole world had just collapsed” after the filing of the lawsuit, in which the star was accused of rape.

“The first thing my brain goes to is not the career. It’s, how am I going to provide for my kids? I had three [kids] then,” Allen told friend Kathie Lee Gifford in the video as he explained that he was dropped by his label and had a number of business deals pulled. “I’m thinking to myself, how am I going to provide for my family? And then it hit me. My life insurance covered suicide.”

He continued: “I don’t feel that way now, but in that moment, when you feel like you have nothing… In the midst of a society where it’s no longer innocent until proven guilty… She said this so it must be true.”

Allen said he was in a hotel room feeling “heartbroken” over the lawsuit, and began putting bullets in his gun clip. Just as he put the last bullet in, he received a text from his friend Chuck Adams. The star said the timing of the text was “freaky,” as it came through to the top of his phone even though he has his notifications set so that he does not receive alerts for texts.

“He said, ‘Ending it isn’t the answer.’ And when I read those words that he texted me, I read them again. I just stopped,” Allen told Gifford through tears. “I remember I called one of my buddies that lived in lower Delaware. He came up. I gave him my gun. I said, ‘Take it. I don’t need it.’”

The singer said he was “able to get through” that dark day even though it “was rough,” and that he eventually went to a retreat and started seeing a therapist.

“Every single day I remember battling, ‘Do I want to live? Do I not want to live?’ I’m like, ‘Man, my family would have X amount of dollars if I would’ve [taken] care of something,” he said. “But I realized that’s not the way to do it.”

Allen said that while he briefly turned to drugs to help him deal with his stresses, he is now sober and “in a great place.” He now has six children: son Aadyn, 9, from a previous relationship, daughters Naomi, 4, and Zara, 2, and son Cohen, 6 months, with estranged wife Alexis, and twins Amari and Aria, whom he welcomed in the summer of 2023 with a friend named Danielle.

“I am healing and growing for me and my children,” he said.

Allen and his former manager agreed to move past litigation in her sex assault lawsuit in March, and her attorney Elizabeth Fegan told PEOPLE that she entered into a settlement agreement with Allen “to avoid the trauma of reliving her abuse over the course of a painful trial.”

"The lawsuit against Allen was never about financial gain for my client, but instead holding Allen accountable," Fegan said in a statement. "Unfortunately, civil litigation has few ways to punish wrongdoers; we could not ask the court to jail him, for example, or force him to change his behavior. One of the few remedies we do have in civil litigation is to ask the court to punish through monetary damages, which we did."

"While Allen and my client reached an agreement prior to trial, the motivations remained true — to hold Allen accountable, which we succeeded in doing," she added. “My client stands by her statements in the complaint, that Allen raped her while she was incapacitated and sexually abused her while she was his day-to-day manger.”

The statement concluded by noting that FeganScott is still bringing another case of sexual abuse filed against Allen to trial and that Jane Doe is continuing to pursue her case against others named in the original filing, including her former employer "Williams Bowers Management, operating as Wide Open Music." The other case was filed in June 2023, and alleges that Allen filmed his sexual encounter with a woman without her consent.

Allen, meanwhile, has denied all allegations against him. In his chat with Gifford, Allen said that he and his manager were “hooking up,” and that he was “confused and heartbroken” when she filed her lawsuit.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.