Josh Homme Kicked A Woman In The Head During A Concert

Queens of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme must have gotten confused and thought he was actually living in the stone age when he kicked a woman in the head from the stage; a classic knuckle dragging neanderthal move. The woman in question was a photographer Chelsea Lauren who was shooting from the front row of the KROQ Acoustic Christmas show in L.A. on Saturday for her employer Shutterstock. According to Variety, Chelsea claims that Josh smiled right at her before intentionally giving her a boot to the camera which in turn smashed into her face. The incident was caught on tape and posted to Instagram.

Thanks to Josh Homme @queensofthestoneage I now get to spend my night in the ER. Seriously, WHO DOES THAT?!? #joshhomme #queensofthestoneage #qotsa #qotsafamily #concertphotography #musicphotographer

A post shared by Chelsea Lauren (@chelsealaurenla) on Dec 9, 2017 at 11:38pm PST

That’s a nasty piece of business, that. To make things even weirder, Josh then proceeded to slash himself in the face. According to Variety:

Minutes after the incident, Lauren said Homme took out what appeared to be a knife and deliberately cut his own forehead, dripping blood for the rest of the performance.

Apparently, this is called “stunt blading” and is something professional wrestlers do to drum up a little blood lust. Variety says they don’t know if Josh was drunk or what but that his behavior that night was less than gentlemanly. Sure, I get it, it’s rock and roll but hasn’t GWAR pretty much cornered the market on blood stunts?

Chelsea finished shooting the show but went to the hospital afterwards to be seen which is way more rock and roll than anything Josh has ever done. Chelsea says she’s planning on filing a police report after being encouraged to do so by people who saw the video online, including a social worker. You can read her statement in the caption here.

Thank you everyone that has reached out with supportive messages. A small update, as I'm being flooded with questions: My neck is a sore, my eyebrow bruised and I'm a bit nauseous. The doctor released me early in the morning. Here are three images. Two of them as Josh looked at me, smiled and then kicked me. The other one is later after he cut his own face with a knife. I was in the pit in tears – and he just stared at me smiling. Assault in any form is not okay, no matter what the reasoning. Alcohol and drugs are no excuse. I was where I was allowed to be, I was not breaking any rules. I was simply trying to do my job. I hold nobody accountable for this but Josh himself. KROQ has nothing to do with this and I will always support them. The irony is someone had thrown an ice cube on to the very slick catwalk before the QOTSA set. I was afraid that one of the band members might slip and hurt themselves so, when the lights went dark, I used my arm to wipe down the runway so nobody would hurt themselves. Thank you to @variety for their immediate concern and care with this matter. As of now, nobody from QOTSA has reached out to me. #queensofthestoneage #QOTSA #JoshHomme

A post shared by Chelsea Lauren (@chelsealaurenla) on Dec 10, 2017 at 11:22am PST

Despite the damning physical evidence, Josh says he’s innocent of any malice and he released the following statement (via Variety):

“Last night, while in a state of being lost in performance, I kicked over various lighting and equipment on our stage,” the statement reads. “Today it was brought to my attention that this included a camera held by photographer Chelsea Lauren. I did not mean for that to happen and I am very sorry. I would never intentionally cause harm to anyone working at or attending one of our shows and I hope Chelsea will accept my sincere apology.”

Variety reports that this might not be Josh’s first violent incident. He was sued in March for verbal and physical abuse by an autograph seeker who says Josh laid hands on him and yelled at him after an Iggy Pop concert in 2016. He is also known to shout down hecklers, bitch out his audience and generally act like a big old diva. The night of the head kicking incident, Josh reportedly called the entire audience “retards” and shouted “Fuck Muse” who also performed. Josh really didn’t have to kick Chelsea to knock her out. All he had to do was continue to try to start a beef with the delicate elves of Muse and she would’ve passed out from how rock ‘n roll and badass he is.

Pic: Wenn.com