Drake breaks silence after making guest appearance at Travis Scott's deadly music festival

TORONTO -

Toronto rapper Drake is among those named in a lawsuit after he made a guest appearance at a music festival in Houston Friday night where eight people were killed and hundreds of others were injured in a crowd crush.

The lawsuit, by attorney Thomas J. Henry, alleges that Kristian Paredes, who attended the show hosted by local rapper Travis Scott at NRG Park last week, sustained injuries after “the crowd became chaotic and a stampede began.”

Scott, real name Jacques Bermon Webster II, Live Nation Entertainment, and Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation are also named in the suit.

Paredes, who is suing for negligence, is seeking US$1 million in damages.

According to documents obtained by CTV News Toronto, the lawsuit alleges that Drake came onstage as a surprise guest at Scott’s Astroworld Festival and helped to “incite the crowd,” and continued to perform while the “crowd mayhem continued.”

Drake released a statement late Monday night on Instagram saying he has spent the last few days trying to wrap his mind around what happened.

"My heart is broken for the families and friends of those who lost their lives and for anyone who is suffering," he said while calling the incident a "devastating tragedy."

"I will continue to pray for all of them and will be of service in any way I can."

Drake did not comment on the lawsuit in the statement.

Officials have said that some 50,000 people were in attendance on the first day of the sold-out, two-day event.

Those who attended the concert said there was a timer onstage counting down to the start of Scott’s headline performance as the massive crowd pushed forward.

The event was shut down at 10:10 p.m. local time—40 minutes after Houston Police Chief Troy Finner spoke with officials with NRG Park and said his department noticed that attendees were “going down.”

Finner defended the amount of time it took for the event to be cancelled saying, "You cannot just close when you've got 50,000 -- over 50,000 -- individuals, OK?" We have to worry about rioting -- riots -- when you have a group that's that young."

Videos from the event, posted to social media, appear to show some attendees in distress as a result of the mass of people being pushed up against the security barricades at the concert.

Some witnesses have described being unable to move their arms or even breathe due to how tightly packed the event was.

It’s unclear if Scott understood the severity of the situation in the crowd before him, but at one point the Grammy-nominated rapper could be seen pausing the show and requesting security to attend to a fallen concertgoer.

The event, which has been described by police as a “mass casualty incident,” has brought into focus Scott’s “prior conduct” at concerts as laid out in the suit.

Back in 2017, Scott was charged with inciting a riot after he invited fans to “rush the stage" during a concert in Arkansas which left multiple people injured, including a concert security employee and a police officer.

Two years earlier, at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago, Scott was charged with reckless conduct after he encouraged fans to jump over the security barricades in front of the stage.

Scott has said he is "absolutely devastated” by what happened at NRG Park and said he was working with the Houston community to “heal and support the families in need." 

A criminal investigation into the incident is underway.

With files from the Associated Press.