Lil Nas X pleads not guilty to 4 felonies

Written by Barron Bryant

On August 21st, Rapper and singer Montero Hill, better known as Lil Nas X, was taken into custody and hospitalized.

Police were called to the scene after getting calls about a man in his underwear roaming down Ventura Blvd. in Los Angeles before 6 a.m. A TMZ video shows Montero walking down the street in only underwear and cowboy boots. 

He repeatedly pointed at the camera, and at one point placed an orange traffic cone on his head, saying, “Hey, don’t be late to the party tonight.” “You know where it’s at.” and eventually began to get aggravated, saying, “Didn’t I tell you to put the phone down?” “Uh-oh, somebody’s going to have to pay for that!” 

Montero then goes on to say that it’s going to be “a beautiful sunrise” and threatens to throw the person’s phone. “I’m going to throw it far away so you never see it again. I don’t like phones,” he says in the video. 

Montero seen with a traffic cone in a video of the incident.

Once authorities arrived on the scene, Montero apparently did not fully comply and charged at the officers, leading to some force being used. He was then brought to the hospital for a suspected overdose, spending several hours there before being put behind bars.

The criminal complaint filed in court on the 25th  includes little information about the incident, but says that for each of the three officers, he “did unlawfully use force and violence and inflict an injury” on a person he “reasonably should have known” was a peace officer “engaged in the performance of a duty.”

The singer is facing up to 4 felonies and 5 years in county jail for battery and resisting an executive officer. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges on the 25th, and was released on a $75,000 bail, conditional on attending drug treatment, and went to Instagram to say, “Your girl is gonna be OK, y’all. OK? S—‘s gonna be all right, S—‘s gonna be all right. S—. That was f—ing terrifying. That was terrifying.”

He is set to return to court for his next pre-trial on September 15th.