Lil Nas X was charged on 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.
Prosecutors charged the musician, whose legal name is Montero Lamar Hill, with three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one felony count of resisting an executive officer, the district attorney’s office said. He was initially booked on suspicion of misdemeanor obstructing an officer on Friday.
The musician later on Monday pleaded not guilty in a court appearance, the district attorney’s office said.
Police said officers found the 26-year-old walking naked on Ventura Boulevard, a major thoroughfare in the Studio City neighborhood, shortly before 6am on 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, where he has remained 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 attorneys was not immediately answered.
But one of them, Christy 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 rapper and singer from Atlanta is best known for his huge hit from 2018, Old Town Road, which merged country and hip-hop. It spent a record 19 weeks at No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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.
