Travis Scott’s Spokesperson Says That It Wasn’t His Responsibility To Stop The Astroworld Concert
What’s that? The person who Travis Scott pays to speak on his behalf says Travis Scott isn’t guilty of anything? Oh, well that settles it then. Ever since nine people died and hundreds were injured at Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas last week, people have been playing the blame game. Many have been looking in Travis’ direction, considering there’s no end to the stories about Travis encouraging dangerous and reckless crowd behavior at his shows. But as Travis’ spokesperson has assured everyone, Travis isn’t responsible for anything that happened at Astroworld, and even if he wanted to stop the show, he couldn’t, because that’s not part of his contract. Ah, bureaucracy and red tape, the perfect scapegoat.
Travis Scott’s spokesperson is Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a woman who served as the 49th mayor of Baltimore from 2010 to 2016, and also the secretary of the Democratic National Committee. How she became the spokesperson for Travis Scott is a mystery, but she’s here, and ready to speak on his behalf. Stephanie appeared on CBS Mornings and spoke to Gayle King about the Astroworld situation. It has been reported many times that things got so bad at Astroworld with crowding and stage-rushing, that people in the crowd were begging people in charge to stop the show for the sake of the paramedics trying to help the unconscious people in the crowd, as well as to encourage the crowd to make space so people could breathe. Travis paused the show several times, but continued to perform, even bringing out Drake at the end of his set. Lawyer Rick Ramos, who is representing one of the victims, blamed Travis for inciting a mob and not stopping the show. But Stephanie is calling bullshit on all the people who keep asking why Travis didn’t stop the show. Why? Well, it wasn’t his responsibility to stop it, that’s why. via CBS:
“I mean this notion that Travis had the ability to stop the concert is ludicrous. They have a 59-page operations plan, and it clearly says the only two people that have the authority to stop the concert were the executive producer and the concert producer.”
But even though Stephanie stresses that it’s not Travis’ fault, she let it be known that Travis is a benevolent soul who wants to make things right.
“He was not responsible for this, but he wants to be responsible for the solution. And I’m here to make sure that we can connect the dots and to make sure that this tragedy – that there’s a lesson out of this tragedy and something like this doesn’t happen again.”
We’ve officially gone from “Travis had no idea people were dying” to “Travis wasn’t authorized to do anything, so lay off him.” I’m not sure which angle they’ll play in court, but they’ll have to pick one, considering there are now a reported 160 lawsuits that have been filed against Travis Scott and Live Nation.
Travis Scott's spokesperson Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says the rapper was not aware of the degree of tragedy at Astroworld until hours after the event ended.
She says he's looking to move forward: “He was not responsible for this, but he wants to be responsible for the solution.” pic.twitter.com/4gBbDwXcvT
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) November 12, 2021
Travis has pledged to pay for the funerals of the nine victims and has partnered with BetterHelp to provide a month of therapy services to anyone who needs it. According to NME, these are the first of many things Travis will be doing to attempt to make things right.
Travis’ rep says he’s not responsible for the deaths, but we’ll see what a judge and a jury thinks about that. But I’ll say that I’ve been to concerts that felt like they were going to end over a whole lot less, with the final decision coming down to the artist on stage. I once saw Mötley Crüe, and I swear if we didn’t let Tommy Lee really hear us scream, he was going to pack up that roller coaster drum kit, leave the stage, and instruct the Molson Amphitheater to cue up the house lights.
Pic: Wenn.com