Travis Scott apparently had no idea about the “mass casualty event” going on in the crowd at his Astroworld Festival show last Friday night until… the next day?!
That’s what his lawyer, Ed McPherson, is now claiming. McPherson explained as much in a new interview with GMA that aired Friday morning, one week after the horrible crowd surge tragedy that has claimed the lives of nine people so far and injured hundreds more.
Related: Is Travis Scott Liable For The Fatalities At His Show??
According to McPherson, the 30-year-old rapper was allegedly left in the dark when it came to not being informed about the horrific spate of deaths at his show in his hometown of Houston.
Of course, we were already aware that Scott actually hung out after the concert with Drake at an after party at Dave & Buster’s, so the groundwork has been laid to claim that Kylie Jenner‘s partner wasn’t aware of the deaths for at least some time after the tragedy occurred. But McPherson is now taking things a step further and claiming the awareness only came about the next day.
The lawyer simply said:
“That never got to Travis, that never got to Travis’ crew.”
Wow.
Honestly, it’s kind of hard for us to believe that alleged timeline of events, if for no other reason than news of the tragic scene was ALL OVER social media as it happened. People were posting videos and personal accounts as the horrible crowd surge unfolded, and they were rapidly going viral all over TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram.
So does the rapper’s counsel mean to allege that Travis never checked social media after his show?! And even if he didn’t personally check it, none of his team saw what was going viral worldwide and brought it to his attention Friday night after the concert?? None of his friends saw the situation unfolding online and messaged him personally about it??? Momager Kris Jenner didn’t see the situation unfolding in real time and loop Travis in on her crisis mode communications?!
Come on…
Not only that, we previously heard that he did learn about the deaths while at the party and left immediately. Shifting stories are never a good sign in a situation like this.
McPherson is really running interference for his client, that’s for sure. Elsewhere in the interview with GMA, the lawyer argued that Scott couldn’t have known about what was going on in the crowd:
“He’s up there trying to perform. He does not have any ability to know what’s going on down below. … Understand that when he’s up on the stage, and he has flash pots going off around him and he has an ear monitor that has music blasting through it and his own voice. He can’t hear anything, he can’t see anything.”
OK, that’s obviously one of the issues here. Travis Scott really might have been unable to see what was going on in the crowd because of all the on-stage stuff.
However, we’ve seen lots of videos resurfacing over the past week of artists seeing things going on in the crowd and pausing shows for safety reasons. And in the very same GMA interview, McPherson also mentions this:
“[Scott was] on a riser at one point and he sees one boy down… stops the show, [and] he asked security to get to that person.”
Sooooo which one is it, then? Travis could see into the crowd well enough to stop the show for a distressed fan, or he couldn’t see into the crowd, and so he’s not liable for anything that happened??
Here is McPherson’s full interview with GMA (below):
BTW, that’s not the first interview McPherson has given on the tragedy.
He actually spoke out for the very first time one day earlier, on Thursday, in a local news interview with ABC 13 in Houston.
In that conversation, the lawyer claimed “finger-pointing” by city officials and crowd control personnel has made the whole situation even more difficult:
“There has been multiple finger-pointing, much of which has been by city officials, who have sent inconsistent messages and have backtracked from original statements.”
He also alleged that it was on the police department to stop the show, and them failing to do so exacerbated the situation.
When asked by ABC 13 whether Scott would have stopped the show if the police had asked, McPherson responded:
“Of course. What possible reason would we have for keeping it going? In fact in 2019, I believe it was during Astroworld, when it went past the curfew, like five minutes, the police went and pulled the plug. They certainly could have done that if they wanted to.”
FWIW, Houston’s Fire Chief openly and explicitly disputes that characterization.
Whatever may come from legal battles over liability, the fact of the matter remains that nine people are dead, hundreds more are injured, and thousands more have been seriously emotionally and psychologically affected by the events of that night.
Those people are the ones who truly deserve our sympathy and support.
The post Travis Scott's Lawyer Now Claims Rapper Didn't Learn Of Astroworld Deaths Until The NEXT DAY appeared first on Perez Hilton.
