A transgender woman is speaking out after she was brutally attacked during Kanye West‘s Rolling Loud performance. The attack was caught on camera.
Transgender Woman Attacked During Kanye and Ty Dolla $ign’s Rolling Loud Set
Last Friday (March 14), footage emerged online of a transgender woman getting into a serious fight with multiple individuals during Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s Rolling Loud set on March 13. The woman’s face was noticeably bloodied and bruised as the attack continued for several minutes as festival attendees cheered on the beating. XXL will not be posting any videos of the assault.
In a follow-up interview with TMZ on Tuesday (March 19), Blu Linares, 22, confirmed she was the one in the scuffle. Linares said the fight broke out after bumping into two men several times. She claims the assault felt transphobic.
“We were just all enjoying the concert and this group of two guys, the crowd kept bumping us into each other and they thought I was doing it on purpose or whatever,” Linares said in the video below. “They were not having it, and it felt a little homophobic at some points so I feel like that’s what drove the whole situation, but one thing led to another. They gashed my eyebrow with their ring and that’s how it all started after that.
She continued, “I feel like it was transphobic because of the things that were said to me. They were accusing me of doing stuff on purpose. They were trying to get me to look like the person that was trying to aggress the whole situation but they were the ones that attacked me first for basically no reason, just because we were bumping into each other. It’s a given if you’re going to a festival of course you’re going to be bumping into people around you but for some reason they were specifically getting angry at me.”
XXL has reached out to Rolling Loud and Ye’s team for further comment.
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Kanye West Just Stands There on Stage During Rolling Loud Performance
The disturbing event occurred as fans grew increasingly agitated about Ye’s lackluster Rolling Loud performance. Fans criticized the rapper for not once picking up the mic, and for just standing there as Vultures 1 played all the way through.
Rolling Loud sources later told Variety the organizers had expected a more traditional performance, and even erected a special stage to cater to that.
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Watch Blu Linares talk about the attack below.
