Travis Scott Offering Virtual Therapy to Anyone Who Attended Deadly Astroworld Festival
Lawsuits mount in the wake of eight deaths
Explosively popular rapper, boyfriend to Kylie Jenner, and McDonald’s meal hawker Travis Scott is attempting to make amends in the wake of the Astroworld music festival tragedy, in which at least eight people were killed and hundreds more injured at Scott’s dangerously crowded concert in Houston on Friday.
TMZ reports that the “Sicko Mode” artist is offering to pay funeral costs for the people who died (two of whom were minors). Scott will also be partnering with virtual therapy app BetterHelp to offer free mental health services to any of the 50,000 people who attended the show, and he will be “overseeing” a hotline for people who want to dial in for mental health assistance, although it’s unclear what “overseeing” means in this context (will Scott be personally picking up the phone and talking to people left traumatized from a nightmare in which concertgoers were reportedly crushed against each other, trampled, and “screaming for help [but] no one helped”?).
In addition, Scott will be refunding all Astroworld attendees, and he has pulled out of the Day N Vegas Festival in Las Vegas this weekend, Variety reports.
The musician, who produced and headlined Astroworld, has been named in at least three lawsuits related to the disaster, along with concert organizers ScoreMore and Live Nation, as well as — in one lawsuit — Drake, who performed alongside Scott at the festival. The complaints accused Scott of encouraging violence, noting the rapper’s history of stirring up chaos at his performances. According to the New York Times:
In 2015, Mr. Scott pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct after he encouraged fans at Lollapalooza in Chicago to climb over security barricades and onto the stage. Two years later, Mr. Scott was sued by a fan who said he had become paralyzed after being pushed from a third-story balcony and dragged onstage while the rapper performed in Manhattan.
“I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival,” Scott wrote in a statement released on Saturday.
