Music

Russell Crowe and Azealia Banks got in a fight because of course they did

by Dave Jaffer

Because 2016 has been exceedingly sad, dumb, and strange (in no particular order), it somehow comes as no surprise that Russell Crowe and Azealia Banks got in something resembling a fight this past Saturday at a Los Angeles hotel.

As the story goes, Crowe had invited some people to his Beverly Hills hotel suite to “have dinner and listen to music.” RZA was one such guest, his relationship with Crowe likely connected to having directed the phone-throwing Oscar winner in 2011’s The Man with the Iron Fists. Banks was there as a guest of RZA, with whom she recently signed a record deal.

All good so far, right? Wrong.

Apparently, Banks trashed Crowe’s music — to mean his taste in music vis-à-vis what he was playing and not necessarily his music that he made with 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, though he may very well have been blasting some TOFOG — and made some comment about “boring white men.” Someone described as a “female guest” of Crowe’s took issue with this, and told her to “pipe down,” which is likely the first time anyone’s asked anyone pipe down that since 1988.

Here’s where it gets, well, how it gets…

Banks allegedly responded by saying, “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,” dropping a bunch of n-bombs, and almost (but not quite) throwing a glass before being physically escorted out of the suite by Crowe. As of right now, there’s no word on whether or not the trek to the door was more or less than thirty odd feet, or whether or not Crowe was grunting.

Banks tells a different story. In a since-deleted Facebook post, she is said to have written:

Suggesting this bizarre little spectacle isn’t over, as of right now, the post atop Banks’s Facebook page reads: