LOS ANGELES — Lil Nas X was charged Monday with four felonies after police say he charged at them when they confronted him for walking naked down a Los Angeles street last week.
Earlier reports indicated he walking on the streets wearing only his underwear and boots.
The Grammy Award-winning rapper from Atlanta, whose legal name is Montero Lamar Hill, pleaded not guilty in a court appearance to three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer, the district attorney’s office said.
The charges were far more serious than initial reports that he was being investigated for a misdemeanor, and, with convictions, the counts could collectively bring a sentence of more than 10 years in prison for the singer and rapper, whose “Old Town Road” was one of the biggest hit singles in history.
Police said officers found the 26-year-old walking naked on Ventura Boulevard, a major thoroughfare in the Studio City neighborhood, shortly before 6 a.m. Friday. They say he charged at the officers when confronted and was arrested. Police, suspecting a possible overdose, took him to a hospital, where he spent several hours before being taken to jail. He has remained there since.
He was being held on $75,000 bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It’s not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet. A message to his attorney, Christy O’Connor, was not immediately answered.
But O’Connor told a judge Lil Nas X has led a “remarkable” life that has included winning two Grammy awards.
“Assuming the allegations here are true, this is an absolute aberration in this person’s life,” O’Connor said in court, according to NBC. “Nothing like this has ever happened to him.”
The charges were first reported by TMZ.
The music star is set to return to court Sept. 15 for his next pre-trial hearing.
Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” spent a record 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won him his Grammys. Known for his genre-bending, innovating sounds and style, his first full studio album, 2021’s “Montero,” went to No. 2 on the Billboard album chart and was nominated for a Grammy for album of the year.
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