'Unfortunately this is not the first or the last time the paparazzi have provoked an incident with a celebrity. Mr. Harrelson is evaluating all of his legal options against the photographer'. This is how Woody's publicist's statement sounds like.

The incident occurred this Thursday, at about 10.30 PM, outside the club 'Element', a favorite among celebrities. Harrelson came out accompanied by three women and two other men and were almost immediately surrounded by a handful of photographers. The actor asked them (nicely, at first) to stop shooting and, soon enough, an altercation started between him and a reporter from tmz.com.

Harrelson, seeing he is not listened to, lashed out directly for the paparazzo's neck and chocked him, after smashing his camera on the ground. When the reporter stopped a police car and told them about his near-death experience, the officers just refused to hear his story and drove off.

The photographer went straight to the police section, where he filed a complaint against the actor, liable now to be found guilty of vandalism, assault and battery. The police are currently running an investigation but evidence against the actor is pretty strong, as other cameramen have the whole struggle on tape and it comes out pretty obvious that Harrelson was the assailant and it wasn't just the reporter's fault, trying to pick up a fight with him, as the publicist is claiming.