The American RnB singer Chris Brown has been arrested on suspicion of rape in Paris, police have said.
Brown, 29, of Tappahannock, Virginia, was held after a woman alleged she was attacked at the luxury Mandarin Oriental Hotel last week.
Two other men were also arrested. One is reportedly Brown’s bodyguard.
One police official told AP news agency the rape complaint was filed with police in the 17th arrondissement of northwest Paris. Another police official confirmed this to the agency.
Both French officials said Brown was detained on Monday (January 21), in Paris and is still in custody today (January 22), while police study the complaint.
Neither official is authorised to be publicly named.
The arrests were first reported by a French tabloid Closer, which said three males were arrested after a 24-year-old woman alleged she was raped at Brown’s hotel suite on the night of January 15.
The singer has faced legal trouble previously, having plead guilty in 2009 to assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna.
He completed his probation in 2015.
In a documentary titled Chris Brown: Welcome to My Life, the hip-hop star, who was arrested and charged after punching his then girlfriend in 2009, described how he ‘busted her lip’.
Brown recalled how a fight began after a woman he had previously slept with turned up to a Grammy’s party in February 2009, causing Rihanna emotional distress.
Brown describes how the argument turned violent, saying:
Like I remember she tried to kick me, just like her beating shit.
But then I really hit her. With a closed fist. Like I punched her, and it busted her lip. And when I saw it I was in shock, I was ‘Fuck, why did I hit her like that?’
So from there she’s spitting blood in my face, it raised me even more. It’s a real fight in the car, and we driving in the street. I’m like ‘Yo, we tripping, what the fuck, what are we doing?’
As of 2016, due to his criminal record, Brown is banned from entering Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Brown’s publicists at Sony Music would not immediately comment.
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A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.