Russell Crowe Throws Azealia Banks Out Of His Hotel Party In Bizarre Incident
Azealia Banks may have deleted most of her social media, but she is still out here starting insane, unpredictable beefs in real life. And right now, it appears that Banks’ newest adversary is broodingly intense movie star Russell Crowe — not a man that most of us would want to offend. Over the weekend, Crowe apparently kicked Banks out of a small private party that he was having in a hotel room, and there is some dispute over who was the aggressor.
TMZ reports that Crowe had a group of about 10 guests in his hotel suite on Saturday night to eat dinner and listen to music. One of those guests was RZA, an old friend of Crowe’s. (The two starred together in American Gangster, and then RZA cast Crowe in a small-but-awesome role in his low-budget kung-fu epic The Man With The Iron Fists.) Banks recently claimed that RZA had signed her to a new record deal. RZA brought along Banks as his guest. This may not have been a great idea.
Banks reportedly laughed at Crowe’s music choices — an unforgivable offense when we’re talking about the frontman of rock legends 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts. She then referred to him and another guest as “boring white men.” And when a female guest defended Crowe, Banks, according to TMZ, threw around the N-word a few times and said “You would love it if I broke my glass, stabbed you guys in the throat, and blood would squirt everywhere like some real Tarantino shit.” TMZ also claims that Crowe reacted to none of this, but when Banks cocked back her champagne glass, he picked her up, carried her out of the room, and called hotel security to remove her.
But in a since-deleted Facebook post, Banks wrote that Crowe assaulted her — choking her, spitting on her, and calling her the N-word. According to The Daily Mail, she wrote this:
To recap my night, I went to a party at Russell crowe’s suite , at which he called me a nigger, choked me, threw me out and spat at me.
Last night was one of the hardest nights of sleep I’ve had in a long time.
The men in the room allowed it to happen.
I feel terrible today.
In a more recent Facebook post, Banks wrote this ominous note:
TMZ, meanwhile, claims that RZA is backing up Crowe’s side of the story in at least one respect: He says that Banks, not Crowe, was the one using the N-word. Also, four different guests reportedly used the word “erratic” to describe Banks.
Banks certainly does have a history of erratic behavior. Crowe, meanwhile, was fucking terrifying when he played a Nazi skinhead in the 1993 Australian exploitation movie Romper Stomper, the role that made him famous. Believe who you want.
UPDATE: Banks’ manager Raýmani released this statement…
“Azealia is tremendously distraught and disheartened. She is shell shocked and will speak out on the incident once she has had time to process the brutality and abuse she was unjustly subjected to.”
And TMZ reports that Banks has filed a police report against Crowe (accusing the actor of choking and spitting on her along with using racial slurs) after he refused to apologize.