Surveillance footage shows Lil Nas X wandering Los Angeles around at 1:30 p.m. PT on Wednesday (Aug. 20), almost 15 hours before he was arrested for alleged battery of a police officer.
In the five-minute footage, published by TMZ, 26-year-old Nas appears to walk aimlessly around the Short Stories Hotel in Hollywood, wearing a cowboy hat and boots. He eventually sits on a bench in the hotel lobby and removes his shirt, foreshadowing his later state of undress.
Nas, legal name Montero Lamar Hill, was captured on video walking on Hollywood’s Ventura Blvd. at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday (Aug. 21) in only underwear and cowboy boots. Police later arrested the “Industry Baby” artist, saying he was hospitalized for a “possible overdose” of an unspecified substance.
After his release from the hospital, Nas was booked and charged with a misdemeanor for alleged police battery.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department told CNN that officers were called to the scene after receiving concerned reports of a man walking around in only underwear.
“Upon arrival the suspect charged at officers and was taken into custody,” the spokesperson said. As of the time of writing, Nas was being held at Valley Jail in Van Nuys.
Before the arrest, Nas interacted with the person recording the now-viral video, first telling them about a party and then threatening to chuck their phone. He also placed a traffic cone on his head.
The singer and rapper told Variety in 2020 that he had been self-medicating by “smoking [weed] heavily]” after a succession of deaths during his rise to fame, including Nipsey Hussle, XXXTentacion, and Juice Wrld.
“You know, drugs and murders,” Nas said. “And my grandmother passing [in 2018]— she was the first person close to me who died. It was devastating. And it made me a hypochondriac: I’d wake up, heart racing. It was scary.
“But then I started feeling more connected with the universe, and taking everything as a sign,” he said at the time.