Travis Scott is being sued for allegedly encouraging a stampede during his Rolling Loud Miami festival appearance in 2019.
According to documents obtained by Rolling Stone, an amended complaint filed on May 10 by Marchelle Love accuses Scott of “verbally and physically [inciting] the crowd to engage in a mosh pit and other hazardous activities”.
Scott’s alleged actions are claimed to have followed police orders to end his set “due to the crowd becoming dangerous and uncontrollable”. The rapper did end his performance, however, the claimant alleges that he continued to egg-on the crowd.
A representative for Scott denied the allegations to Rolling Stone. “This is another blatant, cynical attempt to attack Travis. As even the complaint makes clear, this incident was related to a false report of a shooting mid-show, completely unrelated to Travis’s performance… This cheap opportunism is based on a blatant lie that’s easy to detect.”
In the lawsuit, it’s claimed that Scott’s alleged encouragements caused the crowd to panic and “multiple stampedes” continued. “Despite the fact that Travis Scott was aware of and could clearly see concertgoers being injured, suffocating, losing consciousness, fighting and being trampled, he continued his performance while authorities were forced to attempt to render aid to these injured concertgoers,” documents read.
Love claims Scott should have known his actions would “result in foreseeable injury” and that he was negligent. According to the complaint, Love, who also filed the suit on behalf of a minor child and guardian identified as U.M, suffered unspecified “severe injuries” that are “permanent in nature”.
These alleged injuries include: “bodily injury and resulting pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, expense of hospitalisation, medical and nursing care treatment, loss of earnings, loss of ability to earn money, and aggravation of a previously existing condition.”
Sequel Tour Solutions, LLC and SLS Consulting and LLC are also named as defendants alongside Scott in the suit. It seeks a jury trial and damages exceeding the jurisdictional amount of $30,000 (£23,837) as well as taxable cost and other relief. Representatives for Sequel Tour Solutions and SLS did not immediately respond to RS‘ request for comment.
The news comes as Scott continues to face multiple lawsuits pertaining to the crowd crush at the rapper’s annual festival Astroworld. 10 people died and hundreds were injured last November at the event held in Houston, Texas.
Scott was named in most of the nearly 300 suits filed in Harris County last year. He has denied all the allegations set against him in 11 different lawsuits. In December, he filed requests to be dismissed from multiple lawsuits levelled against him in the wake of the tragedy. His representative said that he will likely file more dismissal requests.
Live Nation and its subsidiary ScoreMore, Astroworld’s promoters, also denied in filed documents all the allegations against them.
The rapper has since admitted that he has a “responsibility to figure out what happened”.
Earlier this month Scott made his first major public appearance since the Astroworld tragedy at the Billboard Music Awards 2022.
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