US hip hop star The Game is in serious trouble after a Twitter prank backfired on him. The rapper sent a tweet to all of his 580,000 followers on Friday night US time telling them to call a certain number if they were interested in a music industry internship. Naturally, a lot of his young fans were very keen to find out more.
Only problem was that there was no internship going, and the number provided was that of the Los Angeles’ suburb of Compton’s sheriff’s department. Within minutes of the tweet going out, the phone lines at the police department lit up like a Christmas tree, with every line in to the building jammed as thousands of fans called up trying to find out more about the internship.
Police headquarters bureau Captain Mike Parker told the LA Times”It was almost like a symphony of misery. You’ve got a multitude of phones ringing simultaneously.” Most callers hung up when they got the standard phone greeting on : “Compton sheriff’s station, may I help you?” however the more persistent of The Game’s fans persisted, telling confused police “Hey I’d like to get the music internship.”
Luckily Parker is an avid Twitter user and hence sent a message to The Game on Twitter, asking for the tweet to be taken down. Now the hip hop star could face charges for allegedly inciting his followers on Twitter to “harass the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department”, charges which he is incredulous at the prospect of having slapped on him.
He argues that it wasn’t him that sent the Tweet, rather his phone was hacked by a mate of his. He’s also denied being contacted by the police asking him to remove the tweet, saying “They don’t have my number and I’m not following the police.”
