Chris Brown Has Been Arrested

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Chris Brown has been arrested just moments after stepping off stage after a concert in Florida.

The singer was seen being led into a police car shortly after his show at the Coral Sky Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach on Thursday, July 5.

Several officers were reported to be waiting in the wings of the venue to arrest the singer after he’d finished performing.

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According to WPTV, Tampa police said Brown’s arrest was in relation to ‘an incident’ at at a Tampa nightclub called Club Aja in April 17, 2017 where he was accused of ‘punching a photographer’.

The photographer told officers he had been hired to take photographs at the club, and as Brown was ‘sitting near him’  the singer ‘motioned him to move away’.

As the photographer ‘moved away’ he alleged he attempted to ‘tell Brown he was hired to take pictures of the crowd’.

The photographer and witnesses said Brown ‘approached him, assumed a fighting stance and punched him in the upper lip, then left the nightclub’.

Brown has apparently been released after posting a $2,000 bail, the Independent reports.

Back in February 2009, Brown and his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, had an argument which escalated into violence, leaving Rihanna with visible facial injuries for which she needed hospital treatment.

Brown turned himself into police while his career was put on hold indefinitely. Any advertisements he featured in were suspended, his music wasn’t played on radio stations, and he withdrew himself entirely from the public eye.

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Just two weeks later Brown was charged with felony assault as well as making criminal threats. After pleading guilty he accepted a plea deal of five years probation, domestic violence counselling, and community service.

Speaking later that year on Larry King Live, Brown opened up about his actions, saying:

I didn’t know what to think at the time. I was like what, like, because at the time, I just didn’t know honestly what to think.

And I didn’t know if the pictures were altered. I didn’t know if they were real. I didn’t know what. So I was just like, ‘Man, I just felt so disappointed in myself’.

When asked by King if he felt he screwed up, Brown responded:

Every day. I think this is probably — like I said, it’s probably one of the worst moments of my life. And I always wish like I could take it back.

And every day, it’s just something that sticks in my mind. And I’ve said countless times how sorry I am to Rihanna, and I just accepted full responsibility.

But it’s just one of those things I wish I could have relived and just handled totally different.

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It’s believed the altercation occurred after a woman Brown had previously slept with turned up to a Grammys party in February 2009, causing Rihanna emotional distress.

Brown went into more detail about the incident in a documentary, explaining how distrust turned to violence:

She starts going off, she throws the phone ‘I hate you!’, whatever, whatever. She starts hitting me, we’re in a little Lamborghini.

You know, she’s fighting me, and I’m like ‘Look, I’m telling you the truth, I swear to God, stop it.’ So then she hits me a couple more times. It doesn’t go from translation to ‘Let’s sit down, I’m telling you the truth.’

So now I’m gonna be mean and be evil. Like I remember she tried to kick me, just like her beating sh*t.

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 ‘F*ck, why did I hit her like that?’

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues, and want to speak to someone in confidence contact the 24-hour National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247. Do not suffer in silence.

Charlie Cocksedge

Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.