Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | June 21, 2023
I can’t believe I have to write this story LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AFTER A SIMILAR INCIDENT. But here we are. This is apparently a whole new thing now.
Singer Ava Max was slapped on-stage by a so-called fan during a concert last night in Los Angeles. As she was performing the closing number of the gig, the man slapped her in the face before being dragged off by security. Max continued singing until the show quickly ended. Footage of the assault quickly went viral.
Someone jumped on stage at the end of tonight’s show in Los Angeles.
— Ava Max Source (@SourceAvaMax) June 21, 2023
This is a reminder that this behavior is unacceptable. Sending all our love to Ava and her crew. pic.twitter.com/Rs0IFSn2Xp
Max took to Twitter later to give an update, noting that the assault had left her with an eye injury.
He slapped me so hard that he scratched the inside of my eye. He’s never coming to a show again 😡😡thank you to the fans for being spectacular tonight in LA though!!â¤ï¸
— AVA MAX (@AvaMax) June 21, 2023
This comes only days after a man assaulted fellow singer Bebe Rexha on stage during a concert by deliberately throwing his phone at her. The impact left her in need of stitches. That culprit then admitted to the police that he did it because he thought it would be funny.
Jesus f**king Christ.
A Twitter user claiming to be Max’s assailant says he’s sorry and that he was ‘shooting my shot’ and hoping to give her his number. Yup, that definitely makes it OK, right? Far less creepy and entitled.
I mentioned in yesterday’s post about Rexha’s attack that this kind of fan behaviour is nothing new and always scary. Artists have been assaulted while performing, often seriously so. In the case of Christina Grimmie, she was murdered by a stalker after a gig. Frank Zappa was pushed off-stage in the ’70s by a jealous fan and the injuries he sustained impacted him for the rest of his life. And this doesn’t even get into the many off-stage incidents involving stalkers and overzealous ‘fans.’
Both of these assaults — and I’m going to keep hammering that word home because that’s what happened here, no downplaying things — made me think about the plethora of reports on bad fan behaviour at stage shows, where performers were being heckled and audiences drunkenly fighting with anyone in close reach (but usually ushers and security.) Certainly, post-lockdown, it’s been easy to make the argument that people have lost their social cues and relished in a new vein of entitlement. I can’t say for sure if that’s connected to what happened to Rexha and Max, but I am so effing sick of this cruelty. You paid for a ticket to see a show. That’s not your open invitation to harass, attack, or invade the space of the performer. They’re not your performing monkey, they’re not your punching bag, and they’re not your dream girl who just needs to be slapped around a bit before she sees the light.
And yes, that this seems to be happening more regularly towards women hasn’t escaped my attention. Because it’s just not dangerous enough out there for us, especially female celebrities who face barrages of online hate every day.
How can we fix this? We need security to be better trained for such moments (and appropriately compensated for it.) Venues need to be on the ball about the potential for these attacks. But also, we need a total change in mindset, and I’m not sure how we even begin to get there. I hope Max is okay, and seriously, f**k this cruelty.
