Chris Brown ‘spiralling out of control again’

Source: News Corp Australia Network:

July 10, 2016 at 20:23

EVEN by Chris Brown’s bridge-burning standards, last month was a calamitous one for the Grammy-winning R&B bad boy. During the final days of June, he was sued over an alleged physical assault, dumped by his well-respected publicist, accused of trashing a villa in Ibiza, Spain, and implicated in threatening a female tour manager in what she describes as a drug-fuelled tirade by the “Back To Sleep” performer.

Some within the Brown camp worry that the 27-year-old singer is headed back down the same self-destructive path that led him to plead guilty in 2009 after savagely beating his then-girlfriend, pop princess Rihanna, following a pre-Grammys party.

The horrific assault transformed the star into a cultural pariah and got him sentenced to a California anger management class and placed on probation for a felony domestic assault conviction.

Chris Brown performing with former girlfriend Rihanna at Madison Square Garden in 2008.Source:Getty Images

It all seemed downhill from there for Brown. He was arrested for felony assault for his October 2013 involvement in a fight outside a Washington, DC, hotel, connected to a hit-and-run, had physical altercations with alternative R&B vocalist Frank Ocean and hip-hop chart-topper Drake, and was kicked out of rehab, resulting in jail time from March to June 2014.
Is it any wonder that Gwyneth Paltrow, reacting last week to a 2013 Star magazine story that named her the “Most Hated Celebrity,” quipped, “More than, like, Chris Brown?”
But lately, music lovers seemed ready to — if not forgive, or even forget — grant him a second chance. Brown’s 2015 album, “Royalty,” went gold, and his single “Back to Sleep” hit Billboard’s Top 20. Tender, fun-loving photos of the singer doting on toddler daughter Royalty seemed to further soften his public image.
Now, insiders fear that Brown is unravelling his shot at redemption.
“I don’t think he’s aware of the downfalls that can come from the things that he does,” an anonymous source, who has worked closely with Brown, told The Post. “He falls back into these moments where he doesn’t seem to care about the repercussions. It’s almost like a blackout situation.”
Brown’s most recent troubles started when the singer’s manager of four years, Michael “Mike G” Guirguis, filed a June 23 lawsuit claiming he was forced to go to the emergency room after Brown punched him in the face and neck repeatedly, “without any provocation.” The incident, which allegedly took place in May, happened after Brown invited Guirguis into a room to discuss business matters.

Court documents state that Brown showed no remorse following the alleged brutal attack, and even joked to other staff members and bragged about the violent ordeal on social media. Brown has insisted on Instagram that the entire story was made up and that he fired Guirguis for stealing money.

Chris Brown being sentenced in a Los Angeles court in 2009 after being charged with assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna.Source:Getty Images

Guirguis lawyer Patty Glaser told The Post of that accusation: “We amended the complaint to include a claim for defamation.”

Then there’s the explosive text message exchange between Brown and his former publicist Nicole Perna, which took place before the Guirguis blow-up. According to TMZ, Perna — who also represents actors Chloë Grace Moretz, Jessica Chastain and Renée Zellweger for powerhouse firm BWR — was praising Brown for his clothing line Black Pyramid, but the singer was in no mood for feel-good pleasantries.

“I don’t want you texting me compliments with no results,” he huffed, claiming that Perna had failed to secure Black Pyramid coverage in such glossy high-fashion publications as GQ and Vogue. “Get in the game.”

Perna fired back at Brown, “Anna Wintour doesn’t want to f **k with you. These editors don’t want to f **k with you. The majority of my time is spent on damage control. I am constantly cleaning s**t up and having your back.”

Brown exploded. “NICOLE, you texting me as if I will give a f**k if u don’t work for me or not ... Do whatever makes u feel better. Me personally, I DONT GIVE A F**K!!!”

Guirguis was then directed by Brown to “send this b*tch her termination” paperwork. When Perna attempted to de-escalate the blow-up by ending the nasty back-and-forth with “Chris, respect ... You’re in my prayers,” Brown texted back, “B*tch u in my nightmares.”

Perna responded with her resignation.

One insider says Brown is just, well, being himself. “We are talking about someone who was very young and became superfamous very quickly,” says an industry veteran who has known Brown since his days as a precocious 16-year-old who became a worldwide sensation with “Run It!,” his 2005 hit debut single. “He was this little kid that had this squeaky-clean image, but in reality that was never the person he truly was.”

Chris Brown performing at iHeartRadio Live in California in June, 2015.Source:Getty Images

It was also reported at the end of June that Brown allegedly threatened then-tour manager Nancy Ghosh on May 23 during the singer’s European tour. Ghosh, who has worked with Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Jennifer Lopez, quit the tour after alleging that Brown cornered her on his bus following an argument over employment terms. In an email sent to Brown’s team, Ghosh said that she feared for her safety and that the crooner was acting “irrational and high on drugs,” adding that Brown reverenced his alleged assault on Guirguis, inferring that he would do the same to her.

“ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WHO ARE CLAIMING TO BE MY ‘TEAM’, are apart [sic] of MI\KE Gs TEAM! ... They all were fired on different occasions,” Brown responded in a lengthy June 29 Instagram rant over the trio of disturbing incidents. “IMMATURE AAND [sic] UNPROFESSIONAL HOW THEY ARE CHOOSING TO HANDLE S — — T. NO F — — KIN NEED FOR ME TO HASH OUT ANY SPECIFIC DETAILS, just know people will run up a check and do no work, or even care, THEN ITS YOUR FAULT WHEN U CALL THEM ON IT OR EVEN ASK??? I NEVER NEEDED ANYONE FOR MY TALENT. PR???”

The all-too-self-aware performer then floated this rhetorical gem: “PLEASE TELL ME FANS, DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT ‘CHRIS BROWN’ HAS HAD A GOOD PUBLICIST?”

Perhaps to escape all his employee disputes, Brown rented an Ibiza villa for the last week in June, reportedly for $26,000. But, according to TMZ, the landlord filed a police report after Brown checked out, alleging the singer left behind knife marks on walls, urine in a bed and vomit “everywhere.”

Brown later denied the allegations, saying in a video posted on social media that “I don’t conduct myself like that. We turn up, we have fun. We ain’t no f **kin’ animals, bro.”

While Brown was in Ibiza, hip-hop impresario Suge Knight filed a lawsuit against him and the West Hollywood nightclub 1Oak, where Knight was shot seven times at an August 2014 pre-VMA party hosted by Brown. Knight seeks payment for past and future medical bills in the suit, which accuses Brown of having gang ties. The suit also claims 1Oak should have had appropriate security measures in place since “Brown has a well-known track record of hosting events and/or parties in which violence frequently erupted.”

To be fair, it’s not like the month of May was great for Brown, either. Video from a May 19 Cannes, France, concert shows the singer angrily stomping on a man’s head. (Brown claimed he was defending himself.) And neighbours in his Tarzana, Calif., community complained to police — for the fifth time in a year — about Brown disturbing the peace by doing doughnuts on an ATV.

A spokesman for Brown told The Post that the singer was out of the country and would not speak on any personal or legal matters.

Ultimately, the question seems to be not “Can Chris Brown change?” but, “Will the public put up with his bad behaviour?”

“Even when he didn’t have an album out, Chris Brown was being featured on someone’s song or writing someone’s track,” says BET music editor Iyana Robertson. “He’s completely permeated today’s R&B and pop music scene. So when he says, ‘This is who I am. Like it, hate it, love it, it’s up to you,’ that raw honesty is admirable to his fans.”

Indeed, some insiders fear that the cocky singer may never learn from the fallout of past mistakes.

“Seems like, as long as he keeps coming up with hit records, the public will find a way to forgive him,” a source said.

“Chris Brown has to want to do better. There is no publicist on this planet that can tell him what to do. He’s been through a lot of them at this point.”

This story originally appeared on the New York Post and is republished with permission.