slowthai causes chaos at NME awards, sexually harasses host, gets violent

[StrawberryBlond 14,918]

British rapper, slowthai, was nominated and performed at the NME awards last night and true to past form, caused a lot of controversy. He previously caused much outrage when he performed onstage with a bloodied severed head replica of Boris Johnson at the 2019 Mercury Awards last year and really upped his game this time. He repeatedly sexually harassed host Katherine Ryan, threw his microphone and champagne glass into the audience and jumped down and attempted to fight with someone.

Here's some, albeit low quality videos from the night, recorded by audience members.

Sexually harassing Katherine Ryan (who has a boyfriend, so it was even more disrespectful) and silencing her:

Throwing his microphone down, having it thrown back, throwing his champagne glass down and attempting to fight with the audience:

 

I first heard about this guy when he did his Mercury Prize Awards performance with the Boris Johnson head and honestly, he terrified the life out of me, not just in his lyrics and choice of prop but his entire body language and vibe. This sickening display only pushes me further to believe that he's a full-on psychopath who should never be allowed at any more award shows or supported in any way, shape or form. I don't think he got the sarcasm in Katherine's response to him because he's that narcissistic but I applaud her for trying to handle it like any comedian would, given the circumstances (the clip doesn't feature here but at one point she says "you're younger than my babysitter!"). The worst part of all this is that he was given a Hero of the Year award. If NME has any morals, it'll regret this decision deeply and their foresight should really have been better. You only need to watch one of this man's videos to realise he's bad news. This is why British rappers struggle to be taken seriously and can't make it in America. So many of them are messy as hell. Taylor Swift was there and was apparently shocked. You can guarantee this will put off more international names coming to these awards in the future if stuff like this goes on.

[COOOK 76,406]

First time I ever heard about this slowthai person

[MrDaniel 14,666]

Never heard of him, but looking at it... he seems like a hyper person

[Defmix100 6,419]

if he's signed to a label they should drop him

[Ryusei 61,110]

ummm yikes, guess who's not getting invited again. God some people really dont know the word manners 

[Alphaz 7,956]

Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight !!!

[EdX 2,878]

The absence of security in this makes it seem staged for me a little bit. Probably just an ugly coincidence though.

[Leblanc 2,478]

Sadly I don't think you guys realise that people really like his music.

All my mates listen to him and I think partly his attitude attracts people to follow him. He just put out a song with Gorillaz too.

If you think this will stop him and/or his fans from supporting him then you're wrong. Unfortunately. Cos he seems like a d*ck.

[FfFfFfFF 56,291]

Disgusting. He looks like a troubled person.

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

This NME wankfest is everything that is wrong with the recording and journalism industries. Slowthai (whoever the hell he is) is someone they glorify because his loose sexuality gives them massive boners. 

[RAMROD 110,049]

Is he trying to be scandalous like Pete Doherty? It might work for now. But look at where those controversies landed Pete these days. Ah well, best of luck 

[Red 98,223]

28 minutes ago, COOOK said:

First time I ever heard about this slowthai person

And hopefully the last

[sampool 5,560]

Messy. But it seems like a fun award show. 

[StrawberryBlond 14,918]

He apologised to Katherine on Twitter this morning, saying it was meant "to start out as a joke between us escalated to a point of shameful actions on my part. I want to unreservedly apologise there is no excuse and I am sorry. I'm no hero" and offered his award to her. Katherine responded saying she knew he was joking at the time and knew he'd already lost by coming up against a comedian and she was operating on 2/10 for his sake (I assume she means that she could have really burned him but didn't). Unfortunately, I really don't think that makes things better. I really don't think she seems like the type to collaborate with someone to pretend that sexual harassment is happening on stage for publicity. It's more like she just feels guilty that his career could be ruined for this and wants to believe him that's a joke. Very common reaction that women have to this stuff, it's our way of coping. But his reaction by attempting to fight with the audience when someone shouted "misogynist" at him during his speech shows that he's taking all this a bit seriously for a supposed joke. He's an actor, not a rapper, and the way he acted towards her last night seemed all too real. I can only imagine what he's like behind closed doors.

31 minutes ago, Defmix100 said:

if he's signed to a label they should drop him

Unfortunately, this will probably just up his credentials now more people know of him. The wider public who don't listen to grime music was only made aware of his existence last year when he started being controversial. If artists were dropped every time they committed a crime, there would be barely anyone signed right now.

29 minutes ago, Halle said:

The absence of security in this makes it seem staged for me a little bit. Probably just an ugly coincidence though.

The men who grabbed him after he jumped down were security, he was stopped before he got hold of any audience member. The man with dreadlocks who immediately grabbed him and held him against the wall is security, as were the men in suits who followed. Some of them had those neon headsets on, as you can see. In Britain, security look a bit different to how they do internationally. And there probably wasn't a lot of security because no one was expected to kick off at the NME awards of all things.

26 minutes ago, LeBlanc said:

Sadly I don't think you guys realise that people really like his music.

All my mates listen to him and I think partly his attitude attracts people to follow him. He just put out a song with Gorillaz too.

If you think this will stop him and/or his fans from supporting him then you're wrong. Unfortunately cos he seems like a d*ck.

Yep, that's the sad thing. I just hope he stays an underground fave who doesn't actually get anywhere on the charts. Loose cannons like him shouldn't be supported by anyone. Major names like NME shouldn't be glorifying such people. Anyone who harasses staff and causes health and safety breaches at events should be automatically banned.

[EdX 2,878]

1 hour ago, StrawberryBlond said:

The men who grabbed him after he jumped down were security, he was stopped before he got hold of any audience member. The man with dreadlocks who immediately grabbed him and held him against the wall is security, as were the men in suits who followed. Some of them had those neon headsets on, as you can see. In Britain, security look a bit different to how they do internationally. And there probably wasn't a lot of security because no one was expected to kick off at the NME awards of all things.

I was thinking more about what happened to that woman on stage and no one really trying to stop the guy for a long time. But yea, an award ceremony would probably seem quite unlikely for an... incident like this.