SHATTERED:
A $16 million suit says rappers Drake (left) and Chris Brown (right) were the instigators of a bottle-throwing nightclub melee. (
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It was rap stars Chris Brown and Drake — and not their posses — who set off a bottle-throwing fracas at a Manhattan nightclub over pop star Rihanna, a $16 million lawsuit claims.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. says the two stars started mixing it up at the joint clubs Greenhouse and WiP on June 14, and then ordered their crews to follow suit.
Entertainment Enterprises owns the trademark on the Greenhouse name, and had a $4 million deal in place to license the once-hot name before bad publicity from the fracas scuttled the deal, the suit says. “They were going to expand the brand,” said lawyer Andrew Miltenberg.
The suit seeks to hold Drake and Brown, neither of whom have been charged criminally, responsible for the scuttled licensing deal.
Each man “shared a grudge against the other arising out of their romantic relationships with the same woman” — Brown’s former flame Rihanna — and when they crossed paths they “began to fight violently with each other,” the suit says.
Sources have said that Drake, 25, drove the hot-headed Brown into a rage when his table sent over note that read, “I am f–king the love of your life.”
Drake’s camp has maintained the fight was instigated by a member of Brown’s crew.
But the Entertainment Enterprises suit claims that after the pair started fighting, “each ordered his security personnel, bodyguards, friends and entourage to join the fight, which erupted into a violent brawl on a massive scale.”
“They encouraged it,” said Miltenberg.
Although the rival camps were unarmed, each entertainer had “arrived with his own small army of bodyguards, ‘security’ personnel, employees, friends and other members of their entourage, consisting of at least 15 heavily built men trained and/or experienced in hand-to-hand and weapons combat,” the suit says.
The crews “fashioned deadly weapons out of whatever materials they could find, including glasses, alcohol bottles and furniture, thereby circumventing the nightclubs’ extensive efforts to ensure a safe environment,” the suit claims.
“On defendant Brown and defendant Drake’s instructions, their two posses had at each other, throwing highball glasses laden with alcohol, shattering the handles of bottles of spirits to use as makeshift knives, and even throwing full bottles at each other.
“Within seconds, defendants filled an already packed nightclub full of flying glass shrapnel,” the suit says.
“Terrorized patrons ran for cover,” the suit says, “using banquettes and tables as improvised shields. Most were unable to protect themselves.”
A rep for Greenhouse said club ownership is not involved in the suit, and would have no comment.
A rep for Brown didn’t return a call for comment, while Drake’s rep declined to comment.
Both have denied wrongdoing.