14 DAY TRIAL // Rapper Afroman is doing his best to save face after he was arrested the other day for punching a female fan in the face with such force he knocked her off her feet. The incident happened during a show he was playing in Biloxi, Mississippi, during his set - and was witnessed by all the fans in attendance.
The star is now out on bail, but he wants the world to know he’s not as bad as the video makes him appear, because he really didn’t mean to deck that woman. In fact, he had no idea that it was a woman he hit, he insists.
A heckler had been troubling him, he was afraid because of lax security
As the videos embedded below will show, which are just two of the many circulating online of the incident, which was captured from many more angles, Afroman didn’t even look at his victim before hitting her, as neither did he bother to check on her after he knocked her down.
Instead, he turned his back to her and continued to perform, which he did until the end of the gig, when police came over and escorted him off the premises in handcuffs. This, despite the fact that the woman eventually got up and left the stage crying and bleeding, so it’s not like he didn’t know the kind of damage he’d caused.
Still, Afroman tells TMZ Live, he only acted under the false impression that the person he was about to hit was a heckler that had been troubling him since the beginning of the night. He imagined he’d somehow found his way up on stage and was about to do something even worse.
Moreover, Afroman adds, security was very lax at the show and he was afraid for his safety, especially since he’s had negative experiences before with over-eager fans who rush to the stage to interrupt his show, touch him or who knows what else.
Afroman was frustrated but is seeking help
He was also very frustrated, Afroman argues.
“It was an early show,” he says. “I usually play at night and I’ve had my dinner. I medicate. I get right. It was an early show. It was Mardi Gras. I had to walk like a half a mile to get to the place.”
So by the time he got up on stage, he was already in a foul mood, and seeing 2 female fans get up on stage to dance and one heckler do his best to ruin the experience for the other fans was like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Determined to prove that he’s really not as bad as the footage makes him look, Afroman says he’s getting help for his problems, including going to rehab for anxiety and anger management.
His publicist is also working overtime to save whatever’s left of his reputation, saying in a statement to Billboard that “This was a completely involuntary reflex reaction to people infringing on his stage space. It was uncharacteristic behavior that was initiated by outside uncontrolled forces.”
As if these “outside uncontrolled forces” did this without him having any kind of say in it.
