Josh Homme Kicks Female Photographer in the Head at Queens of the Stone Age Show
Ejecting concertgoers from a show for violating an explicit “no photos” policy is one thing, even if controversial. Kicking a credentialed press photographer in the head… there are no words.
But that’s exactly what Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme did last night (Saturday, December 9th) at the 28th annual KROQ Acoustic Christmas in Los Angeles. Homme was captured kicking Shutterstock photographer Chelsea Lauren’s camera directly into her face from the stage in an Instagram video that’s since been widely circulated, Variety reports.
It isn’t publicly known whether Homme was under the influence, but his behavior throughout the rest of the night can certainly be described as erratic. Minutes after the incident with Lauren, he pulled out what appeared to be a knife and cut his own forehead, producing a wound that bled for the rest of the performance. Later on he called the audience “retards” and insulted the night’s headliner, Muse, with a simple “Fuck Muse!” exclamation.
Homme’s behavior last night certainly isn’t consistent with the past; this is a man who recently broke up a fight in the audience and performed at a 6th grade graduation party.
Lauren, who was in the photo pit with several other photographers, recounts the incident to Variety:
“Josh was coming over and I was pretty excited, I’ve never actually photographed Queens Of The Stone Age before, I was really looking forward to it. I saw him coming over and I was shooting away. The next thing I know his foot connects with my camera and my camera connects with my face, really hard. He looked straight at me, swung his leg back pretty hard and full-blown kicked me in the face. He continued performing, I was startled, I kind of stopped looking at him, I just got down and was holding my face because it hurt so badly.”
Lauren retreated to the press room to tend to her face, then eventually returned to the pit to shoot Thirty Seconds to Mars and Muse before heading to the ER at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for treatment. Lauren plans to press charges against Homme today, stating:
“I feel like if I don’t do anything, he gets to kick people in the face and not get in trouble because he’s a musician. That’s not right.”
Take a look at video of the incident below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bcg3ffCjXBw/
