Travis Scott was determined to have his side of the story heard.
As we previously reported, the rapper sat down with Charlamagne tha God to discuss the now infamous Astroworld Festival, which left 10 people dead and hundreds more injured following a crowd surge during his performance last month. Scott, who continued performing for almost 40 minutes after first responders arrived and later went to an after-party, insisted he was unaware of the severity of the situation until afterward.
“I didn’t know the exact details until minutes before the press conference [after my set]. And even at that moment you’re like, ‘wait, what?’ People pass out, things happen at concerts, but something like that…”
Furthermore, the performer claimed he never heard the crowd’s pleas to stop the show at the time, saying:
“It’s so crazy because I’m that artist too — anytime you can hear something like that, you want to stop the show. You want to make sure fans get the proper attention they need. Anytime I could see anything like that, I did. I stopped it a couple times to just make sure everybody was OK. And I really just go off the fans’ energy as a collective — call and response. I just didn’t hear that.”
But a big moment that has everyone reeling came when he was asked about whether he thought people were “forcing” him to take responsibility for the incident, to which Stormi Webster‘s father replied:
“Well, yeah, you know, I’m the face of the festival, I’m an artist. So yeah, the media is… They wanna put it on me.”
However, the Goosebumps artist clarified that he just wants to ensure this tragedy never happens again, explaining:
“I think it’s more so about stepping up to figure out what the problem is, and I can take that. I can take stepping up to figure out what the problem is. I can take stepping into figuring out the solution [so it] never happens again, ’cause that’s what I genuinely wanna do in general. I definitely wanna step in to figure out how can we fix this in the future. What can we do to change these things?”
Since then, Scott has faced even more heat online for not taking full responsibility and for even doing the lengthy interview in the first place. In response to the criticism, his attorney Ed McPherson first told TMZ the performer “insisted” on speaking out no matter what to help start the healing process for everyone:
“He’s been wanting to speak out to his fans, to the public in general, to the families. He’s been trying to reach out to the families. This was his way to do it, to tell them that he’s serious about that. The families have rejected his offers to pay for funerals and things like that. He just wants them to know that he’s still available, and he wants to help heal. And he does still want to get to the bottom of this, which we really haven’t at this point.”
As for whether or not Scott took ownership of what happened, the lawyer echoed similar sentiments mentioned throughout the conversation with Charlamagne, saying his duty remains with finding out what went down that day and preventing it from happening again:
“When asked about responsibility, he said, ‘Look, we’re responsible to help the victims heal, to help everyone heal, to help the city of Houston heal. And to get to the bottom of this whole thing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I think that is taking responsibility. Is he going to sit up there and lie and say ‘Hey, I saw all of this going on, and I didn’t stop the show’? Of course, not. He did not see this.”
Hmm…
Some may say that is debatable, especially since Scott is currently facing billions of dollars in negligence and wrongful death lawsuits. But what do you think, Perezcious readers? Do you think Travis actually took responsibility for his part in this tragedy? Should he have done this interview with Charlamagne? Let us know your reactions in the comments. Also, you can watch the entire interview with McPherson (below):
[Image via CThaGod/YouTube]
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