Pop singer Bebe Rexha was rushed off the stage during her concert in New York on Sunday after she was hit in the face with a fan’s cellphone.
In a video clip shared to social media, Rexha is seen performing in a pink, sparkly corset with matching trousers when a phone is hurled from the crowd and bounces off the 33-year-old singer’s head.
Rexha, whose real name is Bleta Rexha, clutched her face as she turned her back to the audience and collapsed to her knees.
Several crew members are then seen emerging from the wings to escort Rexha backstage as the crowd chanted her name. Other audience members shouted “That’s assault” when security intervened and pulled the man who allegedly threw the phone over the stage’s barrier.
Alex Chavez, a fan who shared footage of Rexha’s injury, wrote the incident “ruined” an otherwise “great show.”
TMZ reported Rexha needed three stitches to close the wound on her face.
The phone was thrown during Rexha’s concert at the Rooftop at Pier 17 in New York as part of her Best F’n Night of My Life tour. Rexha’s admirers have since condemned the phone-throwing fan on social media and voiced concern for the singer’s health.
Rexha tried to quell her fan’s anxieties with an update to Instagram on Monday. Though Rexha wrote “I’m good,” she shared two photos of herself sporting a new black eye and bandages on her eyebrow.
The singer also uploaded a short TikTok video showing off her new shiner. She jokingly sang, “I’m good, yeah, I’m feeling all right.”
The New York Police Department said they arrested a 27-year-old man, Nicolas Malvagna, on assault charges for “intentionally” throwing the phone at Rexha.
Rexha is far from the only performer to be struck by an object on stage.
Even the world’s biggest stars are not immune to fan-thrown projectiles. Harry Styles — whose Love on Tour recently became the tenth-highest-grossing tour of all time — has been travelling the globe for two years now and has been struck with a myriad of objects.
Just this weekend, Styles, 29, was hit in the head by a pair of sunglasses while performing a four-night residency at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
In November, Styles was hit in the eye when a fan threw a handful of Skittles candies onto the stage at the Forum in Los Angeles. Like Rexha, the incident inspired mass fan outrage online and a call for concertgoers to stop hurling objects at their favourite singers.
In 2004, David Bowie was infamously hit in the eye with a lollipop thrown by a fan while performing at a Norwegian music festival. After stepping back from the microphone, Bowie returned to curse at the fan who threw what would later be known as “love on a stick.”