Azealia Banks, Instagram Story oversharer, Donald Trump supporter, haver of many, many beefs (but ‘212‘ is still a TUUUUUUNE), has started up a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to undertake legal proceedings against thrower of phones Russell Crowe.
Banks set up the GoFundMe over the weekend after a posting a series of Instagram Stories about suing Crowe, in which, as Music Feeds writes, the singer claimed that she didn’t “have $100,000 dollars to play with right now” to pay for legal costs, but that “With all the evidence they have and shit like that, [Banks’ lawyers] can make it happen quick and make it go away… I can get this son of a bitch, […] and make him pay the price.”
She went on to say that the Crowe allegations, and the resulting media furore “was fucking embarrassing, that shit made me lose so much time in my career”: “We would have been had Fantasea II if this shit didn’t stall me and put me in a deep ass fucking depression and shit like that, and I would really like you guys’ help.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjSqiqqhScd/?hl=en&taken-by=azealiabanks
The GoFundMe, which has already raised $1833, draws out why Banks plans to take the matter to the courts in more detail, writing that the aim is to highlight “that black women also deserve justice and will get justice“. She plans to donate any money made from the proceedings to ocean clean-up charities:
Russell Crowe spit on me at a party in 2016 and denied it, had a group of people gaslight me causing irreparable damage to my acting career and my reputation as well as loads of emotional damage. Whatever money comes of this will be donated to ocean clean up charities. This isn’t about a big pay day for me, it’s about letting the world know that black women are victims to the same sort of disgusting violence men in Hollywood deal out to women and it’s important to send a message that black women also deserve justice and will get justice in these situations. Crowe called me a n*****, choked me, and spat on me… if I were a white singer he wouldn’t have even thought about laying a finger on me. So many things like this happen in the entertainment industry and it’s time that ALL these perpetrators get reprimanded so they STOP this violent behaviour !!
Speaking to The Sun that year, Banks explained how she felt in the wake of the alleged assault: “I think he’s a racist, misogynist pig… This is a stain on me. My femininity feels stained. I feel stained as a woman, I feel mishandled, I feel mistreated, I feel dirty. I feel very fucking low.”
On the night, Banks says Crowe was drinking moonshine, whisky and vodka, and smoking weed, before he started to flirt with her. But his mood changed when she insulted an aspiring horror filmmaker: “He was like, ‘Well you know what? You’re young and you’ve never done anything in your career so you don’t know what you’re talking about.’”
She told Crowe his ‘best days were behind him’ before another woman intervened in Crowe’s defence: “I said, ‘Girl, this is not the right time or place for us to be fighting, like what would happen if I got up and I slapped the shit out of you, or I took a glass and fucking threw it at you and you were bleeding all over the place? I would be wrong and we’d all be wrong, and the party would be done.’”
At this point Banks says Crowe, “calls me a n*****, and then grabs me, picks me up, he chokes me by the throat, picks me up, throws me out of the room and then spits on me“.
In Crowe’s version of events, as told by a source to TMZ, Banks laughed at Crowe’s choice in music, calling him and another guest “boring white men“, when another woman interjected. Crowe then maintains that Banks started to verbally abuse the woman and himself, saying, “You would love it if I broke my glass, stabbed you guys in the throat, and blood would squirt everywhere like some real Tarantino shit.”
She allegedly picked up her glass and moved her arm as if to throw it, but was bear-hugged by Crowe and then carried from the suite, and security escorted her out.
Director Ridley Scott and comedian Jim Jefferies was also present on the night, the latter confirming Crowe’s version of events on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/jimjefferies/status/787880570114105344
We’ll update you as more info drops.
