Attorneys for Drake, real name Aubrey Drake Graham, have filed a motion in a Houston court seeking to dismiss the rapper from ongoing litigation over the crowd crush tragedy at Travis Scott’s 2021 Astroworld festival. The incident left 10 people dead and hundreds of others injured, resulting in multiple lawsuits being filed. Despite asserting that he had no involvement in the planning or organisation of the festival, Drake was named in various lawsuits.
This motion argues that Drake should not be involved in the litigation at all as he had no involvement beyond being asked to join Scott on stage. Lawyers for the Canadian rapper cited festival organisers who confirmed under oath that Mr. Graham was not involved in any planning. They also argued that Drake was unaware of any safety problems before taking to the stage and did not receive any security briefings or information regarding crowd control issues, injuries or deaths, or any stop show orders at any time.
Drake arrived at the venue at approximately 7:30 PM and remained mostly secluded backstage in a trailer until approximately 9:54 PM, before being informed to take the stage. He immediately performed for approximately 14 minutes and then exited the stage at 10:08 PM. Additionally, lawyers argued that after hundreds of hours of depositions and hundreds of thousands of pages, none had found that Drake could be held liable for negligence.
The alleged victims will have a chance to respond to Drake’s motion in the weeks ahead. Following the tragedy, Travis Scott shared that he was “absolutely devastated” and that he will “always think about it.” As of February 2022, hundreds of Astroworld lawsuits were combined into one case. A grand jury decided that Scott would not face criminal charges in relation to the incident
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