Singing superstar Adele issued a stern warning to her audiences, saying, “Dare you throw something at me, and I’ll f—ing kill you.” She made her expletive-filled remarks at a concert in Las Vegas during which she condemned a recent trend among concertgoers to throw objects on stage.
In one stunning example, a fan reportedly threw their dead mother’s ashes on stage at a Pink concert in the UK. The singer stopped, picked up the ashes, said, “I don’t know about this” and put them aside before resuming her song.
Back in America, singer Bebe Rexha was in mid-performance in New York City when a cell phone hit her face and caused significant injury. Footage shows the phone hurtling through the air, hitting the star, and causing her to fall over. She later showed photos of her bruised face and a cut over her eye on Instagram. Nicolas Malvagna, from New Jersey, was arrested over the incident.
Days after the Rexha scene in New York, singer Ava Max was attacked on stage in Los Angeles. Clips showing an unknown man take to the stage and strike the singer across the face went viral online. She later tweeted, “He slapped me so hard that he scratched the inside of my eye. He’s never coming to a show again… thank you to the fans for being spectacular tonight in LA though!”
While the seriousness and frequency of these incidents have increased, the phenomenon is not new. Welsh singer Tom Jones has long had to contend with women throwing their underwear on stage, and Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner once reported that a fan threw socks at him.
More recently, British star Harry Styles endured a torrent of Skittles that hit him in the eye and appeared to cause him considerable pain. He also had a can of Red Bull thrown at his face in 2015 and a bottle of water hurled at his crotch a few weeks later.
