Chris Brown opts for guilty plea in 2023 London nightclub assault case
TheGrio...
Brown, via his guilty plea to affray charges, avoids harsher punishment and will instead face sentencing in October.
As he and Usher criss-cross the country for their “R&B Tour,” Chris Brown was in London on Friday, pleading guilty to his role in a 2023 bottle attack at a London nightclub.
Brown, 37, and his vocal coach Omolu Akinlolu, 40, each pleaded guilty to affray charges, stating that the two “used or threatened unlawful violence towards another and their conduct taken together was such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety.”
With the guilty plea to affray, prosecutors in the case dropped the more serious charges of assault, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, and having an offensive weapon. Brown denied attacking music producer Abraham Diaw with a bottle at the Tape nightclub in February 2023 and pleaded not guilty to all charges when he made a court appearance last year. However, prosecutors said the incident was captured on surveillance footage in front of a club with several witnesses.
“This was a vicious and unprovoked attack by Brown and Akinlolu in a crowded nightclub where Brown used a glass bottle as a weapon to strike the victim’s head twice,” Claire Campbell, a senior prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service, said after the guilty plea was entered.
Diaw sued Brown over the incident but later dropped it.
The singer faces a maximum of three years in prison for the incident. He had been free on bail of $6.7 million after being arrested in May 2025 at a hotel in Manchester after flying there for a concert.
It is unclear if the sentencing will affect the dates of the “R&B Tour” after October 10. There is a gap in the tour as it pauses shortly after two stops in Houston on October 9 and 10 before resuming in Atlanta on November 7.