Pete Wentz wants you to know the internet is full of shit. At least when it comes to the account of how he ended up in a fight with a hometown heckler at an afterparty at Schubas. His side of the tale comes via MTV:
"The story on the Internet is absolutely false," he wrote in an e-mail. "Yes, we were playing an acoustic afterparty for Spin. It was a good time for the most part. Yes, the guy was heckling me and the band, so were other people, most in good fun. But we get heckled onstage all the time, and while I'm a jerk, I'm not the kind of person who would ever lash out at someone simply over this...
"The truth is on the way out the door I had to pass directly next to the guy and I knew it, so I kept my head down and walked out. As I did, the guy reached out and grabbed me and said something I couldn't really hear ? it was a glorious use of the English language, though," he continued. "As he grabbed me, I punched him. Yell all you want at me, say whatever, but in a situation like that I will defend myself. After that, of course, it got chaotic, [but] we have several independent witnesses that gave statements saying he grabbed me first ... I am not worried over the outcome, as I was clearly in the right. Anything anyone else is saying or writing is simply not true."
And Pete's keeping a sense of humor about the incident, telling the crowd at Fall Out Boy's Indy show the next night, "We can't talk about where we were last night for obvious reasons, but we thought we'd play this song and send it out to my future cell mate," before launching into a cover of Akon's "Don't Matter." (For those who aren't keeping up with Akon's recent binge of idiocy, Pete's referring to this. Or maybe this -- and, bonus.)
And in defense of his heckling, the bloodied Schubas patron submitted this video from the night. (via)
Do you blame him?
