Morrissey has come to the defence of an audience member who made headlines for supposedly ‘attacking’ the singer onstage.
Over the weekend, TMZ reported that a Morrissey concert in San Diego, California on Saturday was cut short when the stage was stormed by a bunch of concert attendees.
As the former frontman for The Smiths found himself belting out an encore performance of ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’, fans began to reach out to the singer, much to the disappointment of overzealous venue security.
While some fans were quickly whisked away, one fan was shown supposedly ‘punching’ Morrissey, before security put him in a chokehold and led the singer away.
Morrissey’s manager Peter Katsis soon took to Facebook to release a statement about the incident, clearly stating that, “Nobody tried to punch M last night.”
“Morrissey’s fans are not malicious,” he continued. “The fans were simply doing what they have been doing for almost 30 years. Trying anything they could do to jump onstage and touch him, or hug him. The fan in question was certainly more aggressive in reaching out for him than most, so security had to do their job and subdue the fan.”
“That’s all it was. In the end, no one was hurt, and no one was arrested.”
Now, Morrissey has released his own statement about the incident on his website, going so far as to thank the fan for expressing his love.
“The only trouble at San Diego were the fictitious reports by TMZ that I had been attacked,” Morrissey began. “This is absolute crap. The concert and the crowd were a dream night for me.”
“I was honored and grateful for such an excited and loving response. It concluded an outstanding set of U.S dates and I am absolutely thrilled. TMZ, alas, live exclusively in a world of their own, and certain sections of the press seem enraged that there is nothing negative to report.”