When the performers fight back…
Amid an apparent growing trend, Cardi B became the latest musician to be struck by material thrown by an audience member, and she was not having it. While the “WAP” rapper performed onstage at Drai’s Beachclub at the Cromwell hotel in Las Vegas July 29, a person in the front row splashed their drink at her. Cardi responded by throwing her microphone at the offender.
She later retweeted a video of the incident, but has not commented on it. E! News has reached out to reps for Cardi and Drai’s Beachclub but has not received a response.
While there have been several incidents of audience members throwing objects at musicians onstage for decades, such events have appeared to increase in recent weeks, while videos of them have gone viral.
In mid-June, a man hurled a phone at Bebe Rexha onstage, injuring her in the face. The perpetrator was arrested and charged with assault. He pleaded not guilty, while his lawyer told NBC News that his client’s “sole intention was to have Ms. Rexha take photos with his phone, and return it as a keepsake” and that it “was never his intention to injure Ms. Rexha.”
Later that month, Kelsea Ballerini paused an Idaho concert after a fan threw what appeared to be a bracelet at her, which hit her face. “Can we just talk about what happened?” she asked the crowd. “All I care about is keeping everyone safe. If you ever don’t feel safe, please let someone around you know.”
She added, “If anyone’s pushing too much or you just have that gut feeling, just always flag it. Don’t throw things. You know?”
And while Pink wasn’t struck in the face while performing in June, one of her shows was also the scene of a throwing incident that definitely caught her off-guard. During her set at the British Summer Time Festival June 25, a fan tossed a bag of their mother’s ashes onto the stage.
“This is your mom?” the “So What” singer asked the audience member, “I don’t know how to feel about this.”
Earlier this month, a fan threw an object at Harry Styles at his concert in Vienna. The singer was seen covering his face following the incident.
About a week prior, Adele addressed the throwing objects trend onstage at one of her Las Vegas residency concerts.
“Have you noticed how people are like forgetting f–king show etiquette at the moment?” she asked the crowd. “People just throwing s–t onstage. Have you seen them?”
The “Hello” singer joked, “I f–king dare you. Dare you to throw something at me and I’ll f–king kill you.”
Ironically, she made her remarks while firing a T-shirt into the audience. “‘Stop throwing things at the artist, but you can shoot things into people,'” she continued with a laugh. “It’s a total reverse.”
