By Aurelien Breeden
- Jan. 22, 2019
- SOURCE:www.nytimes.com
PARIS — The R&B singer Chris Brown was released without charges on Tuesday after he was questioned by the Paris police over a rape accusation, according to the authorities and his lawyer.
Shortly afterward, Mr. Brown said in a message on his Instagram account that the accusations were “false” and that his accuser was “lying.”
Mr. Brown, 29, had been taken into custody on Monday for questioning about an accusation of aggravated rape and possible drug infractions. Reports in the French news media said that an investigation had been opened after a woman filed a complaint with the Paris police, accusing him of raping her at his hotel last week after they met at a nightclub in the capital.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday evening that Mr. Brown had been released without charges but that the investigation was continuing. Mr. Brown’s lawyer in Paris, Raphael Chiche, confirmed that his client had been released but did not comment further on the allegations against him.
On his official Instagram page, Mr. Brown posted a picture on Tuesday evening that said “This b!tch lyin’,” an image he had used before in reference to a previous accusation in the United States. In the caption for the picture, Mr. Brown wrote in all caps that he wanted to “make it perfectly clear” that “this is false.”
“For my daughter and my family this is so disrespectful and is against my character and morals,” he wrote.
According to the celebrity-news magazine Closer, which first reported Mr. Brown’s detention, his questioning came after a woman in her 20s filed a complaint against him. The woman, who was not identified, accused Mr. Brown of raping her in a Paris hotel room last week, the magazine said.
The woman told the police that she met the singer on Jan. 15 at a nightclub near the Champs-Élysées and that later that evening, he invited her and several other women to the upscale Mandarin Oriental hotel, where he was staying, Closer reported.
According to the magazine, the woman told the police that she then found herself alone in one of the hotel’s rooms, where she said Mr. Brown raped her. She also accused a friend of the singer and his bodyguard of raping her.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday evening that two other people who had been questioned by police in connection with the case had also been released without charges, but it did not identify them or explain their connection to Mr. Brown, who has been attending shows in the city for Paris Men’s Fashion Week.
Mr. Brown’s record company, RCA, which said this month that it had signed a new deal with Mr. Brown, did not respond to a request for comment. Last week RCA dropped another of its R&B stars, R. Kelly, after protests that followed the airing of the television documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.” In the documentary, women said that Mr. Kelly had lured them into sexual relationships when they were underage, and had abused them mentally and physically.
Mr. Brown has been involved in a string of violent episodes over the past few years. In July, he was arrested in connection with a nightclub dispute from April 2017, when he was accused of punching a photographer in Tampa, Fla. In May, a woman sued him, saying he held her against her will at his Los Angeles house last year while a friend of his raped her. He was arrested in 2016 on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon after a standoff at his home.
In 2009, he pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault on his girlfriend at the time, the singer Rihanna.
Despite his legal troubles, Mr. Brown has remained popular with an ardent fan base. He has won several industry prizes, including the 2012 Grammy for best R&B album for “F.A.M.E.,” and he performed at that year’s Grammy ceremony. His most recent album, “Heartbreak on a Full Moon,” opened at No. 3 on the Billboard album chart in late 2017.
In 2010, according to the BBC, Mr. Brown was forced to postpone a British tour after he was denied a visa to enter the country because of the assault conviction involving Rihanna. In 2015, he was forced to cancel the Australian and New Zealand leg of his “One Hell of a Nite” tour for the same reason.
Earlier that year, he was barred from leaving the Philippines for three days because of a fraud complaint stemming from a 2014 New Year’s Eve concert in that country.
