Lil Nas X‘s father says that the intense pressure of fame is partly to blame for his son’s recent arrest. Robert Stafford told London’s The Times that the Aug. 21 incident in which the 26-year-old “Industry Baby” MC was found wandering naked around Los Angeles, allegedly charging at police officers when they tried to take him into custody, was a reaction to the pressure cooker of being in the spotlight.
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“I understand how the music business is,” said Lil Nas’ dad, 56, a gospel singer from Atlanta. “It’s like a high. When you get to that level, you want that drug again, you want to hit that high again.”
The performer born Montero Lamar Hill, was arrested and charged with four felonies last month, pleading not guilty to three felony counts of battery with injury on a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer. Police claimed that on the morning of Aug. 21, Lil Nas was found wandering naked around Los Angeles in only cowboy boots, and when law enforcement arrived on the scene, he allegedly “charged at officers and was taken into custody.”
Police transported him to a local hospital for a suspected overdose before booking the rapper and holding him in jail over the weekend. He was subsequently released on $75,000 bond — conditioned on him attending drug treatment — and, if convicted, is facing five years in prison.
Stafford said the intense pressure to follow up the early success of record-setting debut single “Old Town Road” weighed on Lil Nas X, as well as the strain of trying to provide for his family. “For a 26-year-old to have to deal with what he’s dealing with — to be a breadwinner for a lot of people, the inability to change his mother’s situation and the pressure he puts on himself,” said Stafford, reportedly referring to the addiction struggle of the rapper’s mom, Tameka Hill, who he said has so far resisted her son’s offers for help.
“That can weigh heavily on your heart,” said Stafford, who lamented that his son’s “worst moment” was caught on film and shared around the world due to Lil Nas’ celebrity. Stafford said he immediately flew to Los Angeles to support Lil Nas, crying when he saw his son in a jail jumpsuit behind glass.
“I went to visit him in jail and as soon as I walked through that door, I couldn’t do anything but cry,” Stafford said. “To see my baby boy on the other side of that glass. We shed tears with each other for a minute. And I had to tell him that ‘what you’re going through is normal.’ We all have breakdowns every now and then, but the difference is, yours get played out in the public eye.”
Stafford said it was distressing to see the footage of his son’s public meltdown, though it made him think “that’s not even him” as it became clear to him that his son was suffering. “When I went to visit he asked me to say, ‘tell everybody I’m sorry they saw me like that’. Even in that moment, he was apologizing to people for something he was going through,” Stafford told the paper.
Lil Nas hopped on Instagram last week days after the incident, describing the arrest as “terrifying,” but assuring fans that “your girl is gonna be alright.” Stafford agrees, telling The Times that he believes his son will recover and that the arrest was a wake-up call. “Hopefully, this is a turning point in his mental stability,” he said. “Sometimes God will take you through your worst moment to give you your best moment.”
