This story was last updated on December 9, 2021
A month has passed since Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival left 10 dead and hundreds injured, a tragedy that attendees, authorities, families of victims and the general public continue to deal with.
Many believe Scott is responsible for the influx of crowds that fatally crushed onlookers while he was performing – some rightfully, others less accurately.
Regardless, Scott is named as a defendant in hundreds of lawsuits for his part in the deaths.
The rapper’s team is currently asking for 11 of those lawsuits to be dismissed, marking Scott’s first official response to the Astroworld legal fallout.
On Dec. 6, Scott’s attorneys wrote that he and his company, Cactus Jack Records, LLC, “generally deny the allegations” made in said lawsuits.
Attorneys for O’Melveny & Myers, Yetter Coleman and Tribble | Ross, who represents Scott and Cactus Jack Records, asked that the claims be “dismissed with prejudice,” meaning they cannot be refiled or taken to court.
The idea that Scott is not guilty of Astroworld’s unsafe conditions runs counter to several major complaints, including a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 282 customers seeking $2 billion in damages.
“The accused [Scott and Drake, whose guest appearance caused the surge to intensify] was supposed to make an exorbitant amount of money from this event, and they still chose to cut corners, cut costs, and put attendees at risk,” reads a press release from Thomas J. Henry, the lawyer representing the 282 plaintiffs.
Shortly after Scott’s attorneys filed for dismissal, Houston law firm Brent Coon & Associates announced it was representing 1,547 Astroworld attendees seeking a total of $10 billion in damages. .
Scott’s decision to at least partially evade legal responsibility for 10 recorded deaths — a huge number — isn’t exactly surprising, at least from a public relations perspective.
Although the rapper touched on his plans to make future gigs safer in his first post-Astroworld interview with Charlamagne tha God, he hasn’t spoken publicly about the ongoing litigation against him.
The legal news comes a week after the Houston Chronicle published an investigation outlining concerns Astroworld organizers initially raised about the festival’s layout, staff and security while it was being held.
Several victims’ families rejected Scott’s offer to cover funeral expenses.
A lawyer representing the family of John Hilgert, a 14-year-old who died at the festival, told Rolling Stone that “offering to pay for the funeral [is] frankly humiliating and truly inappropriate for the scale of the tragedy that has unfolded.”
Although the victims and survivors are the most severely affected by Astroworld, it is worth noting the magnitude of the repercussions of the festival.
More recently, Hulu was reprimanded for quickly churning out an investigative report that commentators found abusive as W Magazine rushed to remove a cover story featuring Scott, Kylie Jenner and their daughter, Stormi.
A leaked video of the magazine’s cover, however, has been circulating on social media.
Likewise, Nike has suspended Scott’s upcoming Air Force 1 collaboration, indefinitely delaying its original December 16 release date.
Dior must also decide to withdraw its next men’s collection, a collaboration with the disgraced artist.
Prices for Scott’s countless sneaker partnerships are consistently high on resale sites such as StockX, indicating that sellers aren’t exactly rushing to unload Cactus Jack products. Depending on how the Astroworld spinoff continues to play out, it may affect resale value.
There is no doubt that Scott’s reputation has been irrevocably tarnished. In a few years, the general public might have absolved the rapper of wrongdoing — or not.
The real blow here is that 10 families have lost a loved one forever, a reality they must live with whether or not Scott succeeds in rehabilitating his image.