Chris Brown is being sued for allegedly directing his entourage to physically assault four people during a tour stop in Fort Worth, Texas on Saturday, July 20th.
According to TMZ Hip-Hop, the first lawsuit was filed by the four victims on Monday, July 22nd. The $50 million suit was filed against Brown, Dallas-based rapper Yella Beezy, Brown’s entourage lieutenant Sinko Ceej, and Live Nation, the producer of Brown’s “11:11 Tour.”
The four plaintiffs Larry Parker, Joseph Lewis, Charles Bush, and Da Marcus Powell attended Brown’s concert in Fort Worth and were escorted backstage for a VIP meet-and-greet. After waiting around 30 minutes for Brown, they decided to leave — upon doing so, Bush claims he congratulated Brown on a great show, and a member of Brown’s entourage shouted to the singer, “Man you don’t remember you two were beefing?”
Bush then alleges that Brown directed his entourage to severely beat Bush, even claiming that crew member Hood Boss threw a chair at his head. The other plaintiffs recount a similar story, with Parker alleging that he was chased into a dead-end staircase and was punched and kicked in the head by Brown’s entourage “for more than 10 minutes.” All four men say they suffered sever injuries, and one was reportedly still in the hospital recovering.
In the middle of all this, TMZ Hip-Hop reports, 58-year-old security guard Frederick R. Overpeck, who apparently didn’t even know who Chris Brown was and was assigned to work security for his VIP afterparty, attempted to break up the backstage brawl that was taking place. He claims to have been severely injured while trying to break up the fight, resulting in a cracked vertebrae in his neck and a severely injured hip. Now, he’s suing the same four parties as the other plaintiffs for $15 million, meaning Brown, Beezy, Sink Ceej, and Live Nation face a collective $65 million lawsuit over the incident.
Overpeck corroborates the other plaintiff’s claims; in documents obtained by TMZ, Overpeck described the scene as a “prison yard beatdown,” claimed he heard Brown order his crew to “fuck them up,” saw a 300-pound henchman “squash one of the guys like a bug,” and attempted to intervene, only to be met with “punches and kicks” from Beezy and Brown’s team.
The four original plaintiffs are also seeking out restraining orders against Brown, Beezy, and Ceej. All five are being represented by attorney Tony Buzbee, who shared an Instagram post confirming and detailing the lawsuit. Chris Brown has yet to comment on the lawsuit.
This is not the first time (and, if history is any indication, not the last time) that Chris Brown has gotten in trouble for inflicting violence onto others and faced an ensuing legal battle. In addition a highly-publicized domestic violence incident with Rihanna in 2009, he’s twice been charged with felony battery, was involved in a police standoff, was accused of rape, and faced a handful of allegations of starting fights and being otherwise violent. He also was charged with possession of an exotic monkey in 2018, which, on the scale of everything else he’s been accused of, was probably the least of Brown’s legal concerns at the time.
