Travis Scott and Live Nation have quietly settled a lawsuit with a third family of one of the Astroworld victims, as 14-year-old John Hilgert’s family decided to settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Hilgert’s relatives reportedly withdrew the suit six months ago, according to court documents obtained by Rolling Stone, and submitted a notice of non-suit with prejudice in February.
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Scott was listed as a defendant along with Scoremore, Live Nation, multiple security companies and others.
Hilgert’s family has now joined the families of Axel Acosta and Brianna Rodriguez, who also settled their suits out of court.
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Disaster struck on November 5, 2021, when Travis Scott performed at the opening night of his Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas.
By the end of the evening, eight people were dead and hundreds more were injured after a crowd crush broke out among the approximately 50,000 attendees. “The crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage, and people began to panic,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña explained at the time.
The violence began around 9:15 p.m. local time, and once Scott and organizers Live Nation realized what was going on, they immediately stopped the show.
Two more people succumbed to their injuries after the concert, but Travis Scott ultimately escaped potential criminal charges related to the deaths. A recently released report from Houston police claimed that Scott had no idea what was going on while he was on stage, noting he appeared to be in a “trance” like state.
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The report continued: “He clarified by stating he was told in his earpiece, ‘Yo Trav, you got to wrap it up, its getting kinda hectic out there.’ He stated again that he was supposed to go until 10:30 but he was told to stop short after Drake got off the stage. Again, there was no mention to the severity of the situation.”
The report was released last Friday (July 28), the same day as Travis Scott’s latest album Utopia, which the rapper’s attorney claimed was done intentionally by Houston Police to hurt his sales.
Bob Hilliard, the attorney representing the family of 9-year-old victim Ezra Blount, disagreed.
“For an artist making his living with music, these are stunningly tone-deaf comments about this preventable tragedy that took so many lives and injured so many,” Hilliard said.
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A representative for Scott pushed back on Hilliards’s statements, telling Rolling Stone that “to use that report to try to blame Travis for the Astroworld tragedy doesn’t just defy logic, but can be seen as nothing but a cynical attempt to exploit the victims and gaslight the public.”
According to HITS Daily Double, Utopia is projected to earn around 400,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, which would secure a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200.
