US rapper Lil Nas X was charged on Monday with four offences after police said he charged at them when they confronted him for walking naked down a Los Angeles street last week, prosecutors announced.
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The musician, whose legal name is Montero Lamar Hill, pleaded not guilty in a court appearance to three counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer, the district attorney’s office said.
The charges were far more serious than initial reports that he was being investigated for a misdemeanour and, with convictions, the counts could collectively bring a sentence of more than 10 years in prison for the singer and rapper whose “Old Town Road” was one of the biggest hit singles in history.
Police said officers found the 26-year-old walking naked on Ventura Boulevard, a major thoroughfare in the Studio City neighbourhood, just before 6am on Friday.
They said Hill charged at the officers when confronted and was arrested. Police, suspecting a possible overdose, took him to a hospital where he spent several hours before being taken to prison, where he has remained since.
He was being held on US$75,000 bail, conditional on attending drug treatment. It is not immediately clear whether he had posted it and been released yet. A message to his lawyer, Christy O’Connor, was not immediately answered.