Investigators are still determining the cause of the stampede at Astroworld Festival that left eight people dead and hundreds of others injured. However, even before Friday night’s tragedy, Travis Scott had a long history of reckless behavior when it came to crowd control and safety.
In July 2015, while performing a set at Openair Festival in Switzerland, Scott encouraged the crowd to beat up a fan who allegedly attempted to steal one of his shoes while Scott was crowd-surfing. After stopping the show, Scott pointed in the fan’s direction and encouraged those around him to “Get that motherfucker” and “Fuck him up!” As security pulled the fan from the audience, Scott then appeared to spit on him.
A month later in August 2015, Scott was charged with disorderly conduct after police said he urged fans to climb over barricades at Chicago’s Lollapalooza and led a chant of “We want rage.” The scene became so chaotic that officers attempted to detain Scott during his performance and he briefly fled the scene. Scott pleaded guilty to reckless conduct charges and was ordered under court supervision.
Scott faced similar charges in May 2017 after encouraging fans to join him on stage during a concert in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Several people, including a police officer and a security guard, were injured in the rush to the stage, and Scott later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
Also in 2017, a 23-year-old man named Kyle Green was seriously injured during Scott’s concert at Terminal 5 in New York City. Green said the was pushed off a balcony after the rapper encouraged his fans to jump. He suffered a fractured vertebrae that left him partially paralyzed, but before being treated for his injuries, he was taken to the front of the stage where Scott marveled at his “fearlessness.” Months after the incident, Green filed a lawsuit against Scott.
Over the years, Scott has also glorified images and videos of his fans crashing security gates in order to gain access into his concerts. At least one of those posts — a Tweet from May 2021 in which he wrote, “We still sneaking the wild ones in. !!!!” — was deleted sometime in the last few hours.
Another Instagram post from November 2019 features video of fans jumping over barricades. “DA YOUTH DEM CONTROL THE FREQUENCY,” Scott wrote in an accompanying caption. “EVERYONE HAVE FUN. RAGERS SET TONE WHEN I COME OUT TONIGHT. BE SAFE RAGE HARD. AHHHHHHHHHHH”
