Canadian rapper Tory Lanez has denied he assaulted singer August Alsina this past weekend in Chicago.
Both artists were part of the Fall Back in Love Comedy & Music Jam at the Arie Crown Theatre in Chicago on Saturday. According to a report, Lanez and his bodyguards confronted Alsina backstage after he rejected a handshake from Lanez.
In an Instagram post on Sunday, Alsina shared a photo that showed him with blood below his mouth. He claimed he didn’t shake Lanez’s hand because “my doctor directed me not to compromise my health while out on road and shake as less hands as possible due to corona, & monkeypox.”
The 30-year-old insisted no “disrespectful words were exchanged” but Lanez “snuck me when I turned my head to move to the side.” He said there was “never a ‘fight’! Simply an Assault.”
Alsina claimed Lanez’s entourage recorded the altercation. “PUT. THE. FOOTAGE. OUT!! I’d like to see it.”
Lanez addressed the reports in an Instagram Story. “I don’t know what everybody talking about,” he wrote. “But I’ve been in the studio …. I’m not in anything negative … I’ve been working on my self …. And being a better person.”
He added three angel face emojis.
Last year, Prince Michael Harty of Love & Hip Hop: Miami alleged that Lanez struck him in the face at a Miami Beach nigthclub. (A rep for Lanez told TMZ the rapper-singer was nowhere near Prince at the time of the alleged incident.)
Lanez, an Ontario native whose real name is Daystar Peterson, is awaiting trial on charges that he shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot in July 2020. He pleaded not guilty.
The rapper was charged in October 2020 with assault with a firearm and carrying a loaded and unregistered firearm in a vehicle. He faces a maximum sentence of 22 years and eight months in prison.