Dr Dre and his violent past: Rapper once allegedly slammed Dee Barnes' face against wall and punched her head
Recent reports reveal that rap mogul Dr Dre is currently in the ICU at Cedars Sinai Medical Center after suffering a brain aneurysm. The record producer is currently "lucid and stable" based on recent updates and while fans took to Twitter to give him their best wishes and prayers in this dark moment, the rapper hasn't always been on the right side of morality in his past.
As of right now, while he deals with this medical concern that doctors are trying to figure out through various tests, his marriage to his wife of 24 years, Nicole Young is also ending. The rapper's history with women is not clean in any way and is described by most as violent. While the rapper claimed that his soon to be ex-wife was the reason he changed his behavior, his reputation with women in the past have still not seen the end of the tunnel — most think it never should be forgotten.
He has been accused of physical abuse many times and has also apologized for his behavior especially since the controversy that 'Straight Out Of Compton' simply ignored that part of his life. Here's all we know about his violent past with women and how his victims recounted their experiences with the producer.
Michel’le, a singer, had accused Dr Dre of "physical abuse" when they were in a relationship after they had met when the singer was first signed on to Eazy E’s Ruthless Records. The couple had started dating in 1988 with Dr Dre being one of the producers on Michel’le's album.
During that time, nothing was made public, but years later, many that knew the couple at that time brought to light that not only was Dr Dre a "raging alcoholic" and hurt their partner physically at the time, he was also unfaithful.
Some of the injuries she suffered included a broken nose, five black eyes and even a cracker rib In her Lifetime biopic 'Surviving Compton' in 2016, Michel’le revealed that there was an incident where Dr Dre once came out and "beat her out of her sleep", after he had been drinking all night.
According to the recount, the rapper apologized and the duo cried together, but the abuse never actually stopped. While the singer remained with Dr Dre long enough to have a son with him, she revealed to Vlad TV in 2015 that her partner had once "attempted to shoot her." She explained the situation saying, “We partied and one night we were arguing and he went and got the gun and I just made it through the bedroom door and he shot at me and he missed me by that much."
"The bullet went through the door, through the side of the wall in the bathroom and I left it there for a while, just so he could see it… he never tried to shoot at me again thank God but the beatings were a lot.” After Michel’le found out that he was cheating on her with his now-wife, she broke off their engagement and their relationship.
Another one of his victims includes hip-hop journalist Dee Barnes who sued the rapper for $22 million before they ended up settling out of court. According to reports, while the rapper was still dating Michel’le in 1990, he attacked Barnes after he felt that she disrespected him when during the interview she had done with Ice Cube.
In an interview with Rolling Stone in August 1991, Barnes revealed that not only was she slammed into a wall and thrown down a staircase, she was also punched multiple times by the rapper after his men blocked the exit of a bathroom. He had grabbed her hair and punched her in the back of the head. She recounted the incident in a 1991 statement saying that she endured him "slamming her face and right side of her body repeatedly against a wall near the stairway”.
Years later in 2017, it seems as though Dr Dre finally decided it was time to apologize to the women he hurt as The Root had shared his apology that read, "I apologize to the women I’ve hurt. I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives… Twenty-five years ago I was a young man drinking too much and in over my head with no real structure in my life."
"However, none of this is an excuse for what I did. I’ve been married for 19 years and every day I’m working to be a better man for my family, seeking guidance along the way. I’m doing everything I can so I never resemble that man again." As said earlier, the rapper claimed that his soon-to-be ex-wife was the reason he was a changed man, but now it seems that he won't have her by his side either.
All of his past discretions when it came to violence towards women were not part of the popular 'Straight Outta Compton' which resulted in Michel'le saying, “Why would Dre put me in it? I was just a quiet girlfriend who got beat up and told to sit down and shut up," in an interview with VladTV.
Even Barnes spoke of the issue, in Gawker, but in a slightly different light writing, “That event isn’t depicted in Straight Outta Compton, but I don’t think it should have been, either. The truth is too ugly for a general audience,” she wrote. “But what should have been addressed is that it occurred… Like many of the women that knew and worked with NWA, I found myself a casualty of Straight Outta Compton’s revisionist history.”
"In his lyrics, Dre made hyperbolic claims about all these heinous things he did to women. But then he went out and actually violated women. Straight Outta Compton would have you believe that he didn’t really do that. It doesn’t add up,” she added.
In the HBO docu-series 'The Defiant Ones' Dr Dre brought up his past saying, “Any man that puts his hands on a female is a f**king idiot. He’s out of his f**king mind, and I was out of my f**king mind at the time. I f**ked up, I paid for it, I’m sorry for it, I apologize for it. I have this dark cloud that follows me and it’s going to be attached to me forever. It’s a major blemish on who I am as a man.”