R&B singer Chris Brown was arrested in Paris on rape charges earlier this week, but has been released, reports CNN, the BBC and other news sources. According to French police, Brown was released with the investigation continuing.
The star and two other men were arrested on Monday after a 24-year-old woman alleged she was assaulted in a hotel in the city earlier this month. After his release, Brown took to social media to deny any wrongdoing. “I want to make it perfectly clear, this is false,” he wrote on Instagram, alongside a picture that said: “This bch lyin’.” He added in all-capitals: “I wanna make it perfectly clear… this is false,” before going on to say it was “against my character and morals.”
Brown’s lawyer, Raphael Chiche, said the R&B singer “energetically” professed his innocence and intended to sue for defamation. The two men arrested with Brown, identified by French media as a bodyguard and a friend, have also reportedly been released. The alleged incident is said to have occurred at the luxury Mandarin Oriental hotel on Jan. 15.
This isn’t the singer’s first encounter with the law – he has a number of previous, high profile convictions for violence. He received five years probation and a community service order for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Rihanna, in his car in 2009. In 2016, he was arrested on assault charges with a deadly weapon with a deadly weapon after a woman told police he had threatened her with a gun. He was later freed, and his lawyer said the accusations against Brown were “demonstrably false.”
