HIP-HOP
Chris Brown Clothing Line Selling 'This B---- Lyin'' Shirts After Rape Accusation
1/25/2019
by
Gil Kaufman
The phrase appeared in a since-deleted Instagram post from Brown denying the allegation.
The site for Chris Brown's Black Pyramid clothing is offering three different $38 T-shirts featuring the profane phrase the singer used this week to deny the accusations of rape lodged against him by a woman in Paris. At press time, Black Pyramid -- which Brown launched in 2012 in collaboration with Pink+Dolphin co-founders Cena Barhaghi and Neima Khaila -- is selling a black-and-white shirt with the words "This B!tch Lyin'" above the Black Pyramid logo, as well as a thrid image of the Mona Lisa with the words printed over the iconic Leonardo da Vinci painting.
Brown, 29, and two others were taken into custody in Paris on Tuesday after an unidentified woman filed a rape complaint, alleging that she met Brown and his friends overnight on Jan. 15-16 at a club near the Champs-Elysees and that Brown and the other two later sexually assaulted her in a luxury hotel room.
On Tuesday, in a since-deleted post, Brown uploaded a photo that read "This Bitch Lyin'" in all caps along with the message "I wanna make it perfectly clear….. This is false and a whole lot of cap [sic]! ... For my daughter and my family this is so disrespectful and is against my character and morals!!!!!”' On Thursday, an attorney for Brown submitted a defamation case -- confirmed to Billboard by Brown's U.S. spokesperson -- against the accuser (identified as "Miss K") in a Paris court, in which the singer's lawyer is seeking a criminal prosecution for the "slanderous accusation" from the defendant dated Jan. 18. Brown was released without charges on Wednesday.
The accuser claims that Brown, his bodyguard and a third man raped her in the singer's room at the Mandarin Oriental after she met him in the club. The accuser's lawyer told The Associated Press on Thursday that his client felt under "great psychological pressure" at the hotel when "non-consensual sex" allegedly took place behind locked doors.
Spokespeople for Brown, Black Pyramid and Pink+Dolphin could not be reached for comment at press time. XXL reported that the "Lyin'" phrase has been used on Black Pyramid merch before, in 2016, after Brown was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon following accusations from model/actress Baylee Curran that he pointed a gun at her and demanded she leave his home after she was spotted looking at a piece of his jewelry.
Brown has been in repeated legal trouble since pleading guilty to the felony assault of his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, ahead of the 2009 Grammys. He completed his probation in that case in 2015.
In 2013, Brown was charged with misdemeanor assault after allegedly striking a man outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. He was ordered into rehab but was dismissed from the facility for violating its rules. Brown spent 2.5 months in custody, with U.S. marshals shuttling him between Los Angeles and the nation’s capital for court hearings. After he completed court-ordered anger management classes, Brown was accused of throwing a brick at his mother’s car following a counseling session. Brown was also named alongside rapper Young Lo and an unnamed woman in a lawsuit filed in May 2018 by Gloria Allred on behalf of a Jane Doe and others accusing them of sexual battery, gender violence, hate violence, assault, interference with excercise of civil rights and other charges.
