Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme has apologized after kicking a photographer at KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas. Video of the incident shows Homme marching up and down the stage, playing guitar, before he seemingly randomly kicks the Chelsea Lauren who was in the pit just below the front of the stage.
Homme’s apology includes an explanation of being “lost in performance” and that he was kicking various items on-stage, most of which don’t look like a female human’s head. The full statement, released on Twitter, is below:
“Last night, while in a state of being lost in performance, I kicked over various lighting and equipment on our stage. Today it was brought to my attention that this included a camera held by photographer Chelsea Lauren. I did not mean for that to happen and I am very sorry. I would never intentionally cause harm to anyone working at or attending one of our shows and I hope Chelsea will accept my sincere apology.”
https://twitter.com/qotsa/status/939975357519687681
In addition to kicking Lauren, who says she spent the night in the ER and will file a police report, Homme cut his face at the concert before celebrating, bleeding, with a cigarette and a drink.
Here’s the moment before Homme kicked her camera into her face. The video of the kick can be seen here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BciIUG4Dh1-/?taken-by=chelsealaurenla
Another angle of the impending kick is shown here, with fans using it to rail against Homme’s apology. The prolific rock artist famously kicked out his bandmate and long-time bassist Nick Oliveri for allegedly abusing his girlfriend, and has stopped shows multiple times due to fans fighting in the crowd. For someone so supposedly anti-violence and yet pro-confrontation, this isn’t a good look.
https://twitter.com/tataswimmer/status/939978369508225029
