Dee Barnes Pens Detailed Account of Dr. Dre "Mercilessly" Assaulting Her
In the lead-up to the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, a number of writers have done the necessary, unpretty work of reminding us that Dr. Dre has a history of assaulting women. A recent sharp article goes into detail about three instances—Michel'le, Tairrie B and Dee Barnes. Michel'le told Power 105.1's Breakfast Club in March, "I had five black eyes, I have a cracked rib, I have scars that are just amazing." In July, Gawker went deep on the Barnes case, where Dre cornered the journalist at a party and savagely attacked her.
The group's eventual explanation, in an interview? She "tried to make us look stupid, tried to play us." Dre pled no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge. Several weeks ago, he told Rolling Stone, "I made some fucking horrible mistakes in my life. I was young, fucking stupid. I would say all the allegations aren't true—some of them are. ... But I paid for those mistakes, and there's no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again."
Now, in the week following Straight Outta Compton's $60 million opening weekend, Dee Barnes has written 2,700 devastating words for Gawker. She reflects on her history with the group—she knew N.W.A socially, says they "became my brothers"—and what happened during and after the attack she suffered at the hands of the now-50-year-old, now-almost-a-billionaire producer-rapper.
"Dr. Dre straddled me and beat me mercilessly on the floor of the women’s restroom at the Po Na Na Souk nightclub in 1991," Barnes writes. Later, she adds that she genuinely wondered if Dre was about to kill her—all over a perceived slight from a television segment Barnes tried to have scrapped—and that he "had me trapped in that bathroom; he held the door closed with his leg."
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