Travis Scott has recently come under fire after the tragic events that transpired at the rapper’s Astroworld festival, but this isn’t the first time he’s been accused of whipping crowds into a frenzy. His former manager, Shane Morris, has even gone so far as to call him “a genuinely horrible person.”
Multiple Casualties at Astroworld Festival
According to the Houston Chronicle, a “mass casualty” event was declared by police and firefighters just 32 minutes after Scott’s Astroworld set began. Promoters offered to cut the show short but the show went on until Scott had completed his setlist. The show ended at 10:15, as planned. The second night of the festival was canceled after the extent of the first night’s casualties became clear. At least 25 people were admitted to the hospital. 13 of them are still in hospital. Five of these people are under 18 years old.
Concert-goers describe the terror they felt as people began pushing towards the stage once Scott’s set began. “The crowd was squishing me so much that I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” Emily Munguia told CNN. “I felt so scared, like I was going to die.”
This happened just hours after people broke through the VIP entry to the event that afternoon, pulling down fences and trampling one another. No one knows what caused this pandemonium, but many concertgoers agreed that it wasn’t unusual for the crowd to get so stirred up.
Scott’s History of ‘Reckless Conduct’
This is not the first time this has happened at one of Scott’s shows. As people rushed to enter the festival grounds, three people were trampled on and injured by the other. A man was paralysed after being pushed from a balcony during a Travis Scott concert in 2017. He was also criticized for encouraging his fans to jump from balconies during his shows into the crowd below.
Scott was even taken into custody in 2017 for encouraging fans to bypass security barriers and rush onto the stage at a Arkansas show. He also ran into trouble at 2015’s Lollapalooza festival, pleading guilty to reckless conduct charges after he again encouraged fans to rush past security barriers.
His lyrics show his disregard for safety. In the 2018 track “STARGAZING,” the rapper sings, “And it ain’t a mosh pit if it ain’t no injuries // I got ‘em stage divin’ out the nosebleeds.”
Scott’s Former Manager Speaks Out
Shane Morris, his former manager, has released a video that outlines his thoughts about the situation. “I’m the one who had a seizure and I’m the one he left for dead in a basement in Los Angeles,” he says in the video. “When [Scott] sees people in harm or danger, he tends to continue only thinking about himself.”
“Travis Scott is a genuinely horrible person,” Morris continues, before going on to claim that he used his experience as a software developer to “fake” Scott’s popularity, using bots to rack up streams on the rapper’s SoundCloud page.
Scott, who is father to Kylie Jenner’s daughter Stormi with another baby on the way, said he is “absolutely devastated by what took place,” in a statement he posted on Twitter. “Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life,” he continued. “I am working with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need.”
