Woman Allegedly Slapped By DaBaby In Viral Video Speaks Out For The First Time
North Carolina rap star DaBaby found himself embroiled in controversy after a viral video showed him striking a woman during a Florida performance on Saturday (Mar. 7).
In the footage, DaBaby can be seen walking through the crowd when a woman holds her flashlight-shining camera phone so close to his face that it appears to make contact. Baby is then seen hitting the woman in her face before he quickly walks off. According to TMZ, the exchange sent the crowd into a fit, and they consequently booed him away. The report adds that he left the stage and did not return that night. Per TMZ’s reports, the woman in question did not press charges at the time.
The following morning, the “Suge” rapper issued an apology via Instagram to the woman— who has since been identified as Tyronesha Laws — and explained his reaction to her phone in his face. “I do sincerely apologize, I do,” he said. “I am very sorry that there was a female at the other end of the flashlight on the phone,” he said, adding “But, keep in mind, I couldn't see you.”
For future shows, he advised fans to zoom in to snap photos instead of trying to get that close to him. At the end of the video, DaBaby offered to fly the then-unknown woman out to apologize to her face-to-face and have a discussion about the incident. Laws has now spoken to TMZ about the incident where she shared her side of the story and claimed it was another woman who flashed DaBaby, but she suffered the hit.
“We went upstairs on the stairway to take a picture at the picture booth by the stage and I see security saying, ‘Move, move, move, everyone move out the way.’ I was standing next to a young lady and, all of a sudden, I turned around and I said to my boyfriend, ‘There go DaBaby, he’s coming through,'” Laws recollected. She then said that the unidentified young woman “pulled out her camera” to snap a photo of DaBaby. She claimed it was then that he struck her.
“I woke up and my head was hurting really, really bad. My right cheekbone, it was hurting like it was tender. I did go to the hospital and I was diagnosed with a contusion to my cheekbone,” Laws continued. She also told the outlet that she didn’t “feel like [DaBaby’s] apology was sincere” either.
“I was embarrassed. I had people calling me, writing me on Instagram through fake pages, people seeing me at my job like, ‘You’re the girl that got slapped.’ It’s embarrassing,” Laws said. “My daughter wakes up in the middle of the night crying over hearing me on the phone with my lawyer talking about the situation.”
This latest situation comes after DaBaby previously came under fire after footage of an altercation he had with a hotel employee in Los Angeles emerged online in January.
Hear her recollection of the incident in full below:
