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The latest in a growing list of lawsuits against Travis Scott and other organizers of the deadly Astroworld music festival last weekend was filed Tuesday (Nov. 9) by the family of a 9-year-old boy who is in a medically induced coma after he was “trampled nearly to death.”
In one of at least 18 cases that have been filed on behalf of victims of Friday night’s crowd surge incident, the family of a child identified as E.B. said the boy was “trampled nearly to death by other concertgoers” when fans pressed toward the stage.
“This young child and his family will face life-altering trauma from this day forward, a reality that nobody expects when they buy concert tickets,” said Benjamin Crump, the family’s attorney, in a statement. “Concerts and music festivals such as this are meant to be a safe place for people of all ages to enjoy music in a controlled environment. None of that was true about the Astroworld Festival.”
In addition to Scott, the lawsuit also named promotors Live Nation and ScoreMore as defendants, as well as many others involved in planning and operating Astroworld.
Friday’s deadly crush occurred during the first night of a two-day festival attended by more than 50,000 people at Houston’s NRG Park stadium complex. Witnesses report thousands of fans pressing toward the stage, causing a panicked stampede and making it difficult for some to breathe.
In total, the incident left eight dead and dozens seriously injured, in what appears to be one of the deadliest crowd disasters at a music event in years.
Most of the lawsuits filed over Astroworld thus far have been handled by Houston-area law firms, but Crump is a nationally-known attorney. He has handled a number of high-profile wrongful death cases, including Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as litigation for victims of the Flint water crisis.
E.B., the child in Tuesday’s lawsuit attended Astroworld with his father, Treston Blount. As the crowd surged toward the stage, the lawsuit said Blount was “kicked, stepped on, and trampled, and nearly crushed to death.”
“As of the date of this filing, plaintiff E.B. remains hospitalized in critical condition, suffering from life-threatening injuries, which are likely to be catastrophic,” Crump wrote in the lawsuit.
Like other cases that have been filed against Scott and Live Nation, the lawsuit filed by the Blount family accuses the Astroworld organizers of negligence, claiming they “egregiously failed in their duty to protect the health, safety, and lives of those in attendance at the concert.”
The claim focuses on poor planning, but also on the decision to allow the show to continue after warning signs from the crown — and reportedly for more than 40 minutes after Houston officials had deemed the incident a “mass casualty” event.
“Many individuals were seen lifting up the unconscious bodies of friends and strangers and surfed them over the top of the crowd, hoping to send them to safety,” Crump wrote in the lawsuit. “Further, several individuals were shouting for help with CPR and pleading with Defendants to stop the concert.”
Live Nation, Scott and ScoreMore have not responded to requests for comment on the litigation.
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The 55th annual CMA Awards are back, returning to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, with performers playing in front of a full, in-person audience.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, last year’s ceremony aired live from Nashville’s Music City Center, with only nominees and winners in attendance.
See below for everything you need to know about the 2021 CMA Awards, from tune-in info, how to watch the CMA Awards online, who is performing and who is presenting.
Who is hosting the 2021 CMA Awards?
Two-time CMA entertainer of the year winner and country superstar Luke Bryan will be hosting the 55th annual CMA Awards.
When are the 2021 CMA Awards?
The 55th annual CMA Awards will air on Wednesday (Nov. 10) at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
If you have cable (or a digital TV antenna like this one from Amazon), you can watch the CMA Awards on TV through your local ABC affiliate.
How to watch the CMA Awards online
For those without cable, ABC can be streamed online via ABC.com. Signing up for free trials of fuboTV or SlingTV will give you access to ABC as well, as both services include ABC, to let you watch the CMA Awards live on TV or stream the CMA Awards from your laptop, tablet or phone.
ABC is also available to watch with the Hulu+Live TV feature with a Hulu subscription. Don’t want to sign-up for Hulu? The streaming service is currently offering a 30-day free trial which you can use to watch the 2021 CMA Awards online free.
Who is performing at the 2021 CMA Awards?
Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood, Jimmie Allen, Gabby Barrett, Dierks Bentley feat. BRELAND and HARDY, Brothers Osborne, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Dan + Shay, Mickey Guyton feat. Brittney Spencer and Madeline Edwards, Jennifer Hudson, Miranda Lambert, Old Dominion, Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban, Chris Young and Kane Brown and Zac Brown Band will all be performing at the 2021 CMA Awards.
The presenters include Trace Adkins, Ingrid Andress, Kelsea Ballerini, Deana Carter, Lauren Daigle, Russell Dickerson, Faith Fennidy, Florida Georgia Line, Freddie Freeman, Amy Grant, Dulé Hill, Alan Jackson, Elle King, Lady A, Zachary Levi, Scotty McCreery, Hayley Orrantia, Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, Darius Rucker, Susan Sarandon, Saycon Sengbloh, Kurt Warner, Lainey Wilson and Trisha Yearwood.
Lawsuits are piling up less than a week after the deadly crowd crush at the Astroworld concert, and legal experts say the risk is mounting that juries could decide against rapper Travis Scott and the companies behind the tragic event in Houston.
Several legal experts told The Associated Press that Scott’s past incitement of concertgoers offers a history that could make it easier to pursue negligence claims against companies that planned and managed the show, which killed eight people and left hundreds injured. And although the investigations have just begun, experts expect dozens more lawsuits seeking damages that could climb into hundreds of millions of dollars.
At the center of the legal maelstrom is Scott, a 30-year-old rapper famous for whipping fans into a frenzy who has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges tied to stirring up crowds at previous concerts.
“This put everyone on notice: ‘This is what has happened, and there is no reason it can’t happen again,’” said John Werner, a lawyer in Beaumont, Texas, who is not involved in Astroworld cases. “They know this is a situation that can get out of hand.”
“This tragedy was months, if not years, in the making,” wrote Houston lawyer Steve Kherkher in a lawsuit demanding more than $1 million for a man trampled in the melee, which he said was “predictable and preventable” given the rapper’s history.
More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed so far against Scott and several companies, including entertainment giant Live Nation, concert promoter ScoreMore, and a nonprofit managing the Houston-owned venue. The complaints allege that organizers failed to take simple crowd-control steps, to staff properly and to act on early signs of trouble at the sold-out concert at NRG Park that attracted 50,000 fans.
“The way the concert was set up, planned, organized, and the way things were handled once there was a problem, it boggles the mind,” lawyer Tony Buzbee said this week in announcing that he was suing on behalf of three dozen victims, including 21-year-old Axel Acosta, who died.
Buzbee’s news conference played directly to the court of public opinion, with the tone of an opening statement complete with slides and video clips.
He and other attorneys have seized on an early clue of trouble that came hours before the concert began when throngs of fans rushed past security and metal detectors through a fence.
“Whatever security they had was wholly insufficient,” said former federal prosecutor Philip Hilder, a Houston lawyer not involved in any Astroworld case. “The crowd went right through.”
Hilder also criticized the event’s 56-page planning document, which was submitted to the city for approval. He said the plans were “boilerplate,” with too few details about the safety of the parking lot where the performance was held, which had no seating or aisles and no pens to contain the crowds.
The planning document, obtained by The Associated Press and shared with Hilder, mentions the possibility of tornadoes, bomb threats, active shooters, civil disobedience and riots but makes no mention of a possible crowd surge.
Several lawyers say litigation is also likely to focus on an unexplained delay between the time city officials declared a “mass casualty event” and when the concert organizers finally stopped the show, a 37-minute gap during which fans kept pushing toward the stage, collapsing and getting crushed.
“The band kept going on and on long after the problem existed,” said Frank Branson, a personal injury lawyer in Dallas. “It’s hard to believe that wasn’t a conscious disregard to the audience, to safety and welfare.”
It’s not clear what Scott could see from the stage as his fans were getting pushed, punched, pinned and trampled, some screaming out to stop the show.
On video posted to social media, Scott is seen at one point stopping the music, pointing into the audience and asking for aid for someone: “Security, somebody help, jump in real quick.”
In an Instagram post on Saturday, the rapper said he was “devastated” by the deaths and suggested he was unaware of the carnage below him.
“Anytime I can make out what’s going on, I stop the show and help them get the help they need,” he said. “I could just never imagine the severity of the situation.”
Representatives of Scott did not respond to an email from the AP seeking comment on Tuesday.
Scott is famous for encouraging fans to ignore security and crowd surf and stage dive in the mosh pit below him. A commercial for this year’s Astroworld event, since removed from YouTube, shows fans breaking through barricades and storming the concert grounds at the 2019 event.
In 2015, Chicago officials said Scott encouraged fans at the Lollapalooza music festival to vault security barricades. The rapper was sentenced to one year of court supervision after pleading guilty to reckless conduct charges.
In 2017, Scott was arrested after he encouraged fans to bypass security and rush the stage during a concert in Arkansas, leaving a security guard, a police officer and several others injured. Scott faced several misdemeanor charges, including inciting a riot. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine.
Scott is also being sued by a concertgoer who says he was partially paralyzed when he was pushed from a third-floor balcony at a New York City concert in 2017, an incident the man says happened after Scott encouraged people to jump.
Dallas lawyer Ellen Presby said Scott’s past will help make a case against him, but his likely defense will be to argue that he is just a performer who leaves the security details to other people, which will make it more difficult to attach blame.
Defense lawyers will argue “what he does is hop on the stage and do his thing and it’s all set up for him,” she said. If she were defending him, she added, she would “try to find facts that he was as surprised and horrified as everyone else.”
Houston attorney C.J. Baker said a criminal filing against Scott is possible given his past behavior, but it would be a difficult case because it would have to establish intent, not just carelessness.
“You would need to show that he acted in a way that he sort of knew what was happening and acted that way anyway,” he said. “That is a much bigger, much steeper hill to climb” than the lawsuits.
Houston lawyer Joel Androphy said most law firms are likely to focus on civil suits that pile on defendants with resources to pay out big damages.
Aside from Scott, the biggest legal target is Live Nation, a publicly traded company whose stock has soared as fans rush to more concerts and festivals now that many pandemic restrictions have been lifted. The company has declined to comment on what went wrong, but issued a statement Monday that it is helping police with a criminal investigation and “will address all legal matters at the appropriate time.”
The company reported it held $4.6 billion in cash as of September. Its stock fell less than 1% Tuesday afternoon after plunging more than 5% a day earlier.
Suing Houston and Harris County for negligence would be difficult, given that both enjoy broad protection under the doctrine of sovereign and government immunity, but there are exceptions, several lawyers said.
“They’re mostly protected, but their conduct is going to be looked at with a critical eye,” said Houston lawyer Randy Sorrels, past president of the Texas State Bar Association.
It was practically a foregone conclusion that Bo Burnham’s Inside (The Songs) would win for best comedy album at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
The album from the acclaimed Netflix special Bo Burnham: Inside is the year’s biggest comedy hit. It topped Billboard’s Comedy Albums chart for 21 weeks and only this week dips to No. 2. The album peaked at No. 7 on the all-genre Billboard 200 — the highest ranking for a comedy album since Lil Dicky’s Professional Rapper debuted and peaked at No. 7 in August 2015. Burnham was nominated for six Emmys this year for his work on Bo Burnham: Inside, which premiered on May 30. He won three: outstanding music direction, outstanding directing for a variety special and outstanding writing for a variety special.
But the Recording Academy moved the album from best comedy album to best compilation soundtrack for visual media. That’s good news for other comedy album prospects. Albums by six high-profile comedy stars — Lewis Black, Louis C.K., Harry Shearer, Kevin Hart, Chelsea Handler and Amber Ruffin — are among the 132 albums that are vying for a nod in this category.
Black and C.K., both two-time winners in the category, are among the likely nominees. Black, who won for The Carnegie Hall Performance (2006) and Stark Raving Black (2010), is entered this year with Thanks for Risking Your Life. C.K., who won for Hilarious (2011) and Live at Madison Square Garden (2015), is entered for Sincerely Louis C.K.
C.K. is a six-time Emmy winner for comedy and variety writing. Black has received one Emmy nomination, for his 2007 special Lewis Black: Red, White & Screwed, which was nominated for outstanding variety, music or comedy special.
This will be a test of voters’ current attitudes about Louis C.K, who in 2017 admitted to several incidents of sexual misconduct, resulting in significant professional repercussions. C.K.’s most recent Grammy nomination was in 2015. His most recent Emmy nod was in 2017.
Shearer, who was nominated for best comedy album three years running (2007-09), is competing with The Many Moods of Donald Trump. Shearer won an Emmy seven years ago for his character voice-over work in The Simpsons.
The Many Moods of Donald Trump is vying to join a long line of albums that focus on a U.S. president to be nominated for best comedy album, following Vaughn Meader’s The First Family (1962), which parodied JFK; the Various Artists collection Welcome to the L.B.J. Ranch (1965) about Lyndon Johnson; Orson Welles’ The Begatting of the President (1970) about President Johnson and the 1968 election of Richard Nixon; and three that skewered Nixon: impressionist David Frye’s pre-Watergate I Am the President (1970), Frye’s Watergate-era Richard Nixon: A Fantasy (1973) and National Lampoon’s The Missing White House Tapes (1974).
Hart, who was nominated for What Now (2017), is seeking his second nod in the category with Zero F**ks Given. (This wouldn’t be the first album with the F-word in its title to receive a Grammy nod in this category. David Cross’ Shut Up, You F—ing Baby! was a 2004 nominee.) Hart has received an Emmy nod in each of the last two years.
Handler and Ruffin are vying to land their first Grammy nominations. Handler is competing with Evolution, and Ruffin with The Amber Ruffin Show – Music From the Original Series. (It’s unclear why Ruffin’s album wasn’t moved to best compilation soundtrack for visual media, along with Burnham’s album.)
Ruffin was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding writing for a variety series this year for The Amber Ruffin Show. She was nominated in that category in each of the four previous years for her work on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
Should Handler, Ruffin or any other female comic win on Grammy night (Jan. 31, 2022), it would mark the first time in Grammy history that women have won back-to-back awards in this category. Tiffany Haddish won in March for Black Mitzvah.
This year’s total of 132 albums vying for best comedy album is down from 173 last year.
Republic Records released Inside (The Songs) on its Imperial imprint. In addition to best compilation soundtrack for visual media, the album is vying for a nod as album of the year. The song “All Eyes on Me” is vying for nods for record of the year, song of the year, best pop solo performance and best song written for visual media, while Inside is vying for a nod as best music film.
The Grammys have presented one or more awards for comedy every year since the show originated in 1958. The Chipmunks’ “The Chipmunk Song,” a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, was the first comedy winner.
So what is the category meant to honor?
The current Grammy guidebook says: “This category recognizes excellence in comedy recordings, including spoken word stand-up comedy and musical/novelty recordings. New comedy performance albums, whether recorded in a studio or live, and whether recorded in an audio only format or as part of a video project, are eligible. Recordings that are compilations/excerpts from a current year radio or television program, or new recordings of comedy performance first aired on television within five years of the release date, are also eligible.
The guidebook specifies that the following are ineligible (none of these factors applies to Burnham’s album): “Recordings that are compilations/excerpts from non-current year broadcast radio or television programs, audio books (even if considered humorous), albums of sound effects, and albums of environmental recordings are not eligible in best comedy album and may be entered in other categories as appropriate.”
Almost a decade ago, in December 2011, Ariana Grande tweeted that she had just seen the Broadway musical Wicked again and it “made me realize how badly I want 2 play Glinda at some point in my life! #DreamRole,” the then-18-year-old wrote.
Well, Grande’s dream has been realized. On Thursday, the pop star announced that she’ll be playing Glinda the Good Witch — the role made famous by Kristin Chenoweth on Broadway — in a movie adaptation of the blockbuster musical Wicked, with Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, originally played by Idina Menzel.
On the latest episode of the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith discuss the wickedly good casting and raise some burning questions. Will we get cameos from Idina and Kristin, the original witches from the Land of Oz? Could Ariana or Cynthia earn Oscar nominations for acting and potentially songwriting? Can you even imagine how bombastic this movie soundtrack is going to be?
To hear the full discussion, listen below:
Also on the show, we’ve got chart news on how Ed Sheeran’s new album = debuts atop the Billboard 200, how Adele’s “Easy on Me” stays firm at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a third straight week, and how Glass Animals’ slow-burning hit “Heat Waves” breaks the record for the longest climb to the top 10 on the Hot 100. Plus, we have the latest news on Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival turning deadly over the weekend, with at least eight deaths and hundreds more concertgoers injured.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard’s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard’s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and senior director of Billboard charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
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