Singer Chris Brown pleads guilty to affray over London club confrontation

Other charges, including assault against Abraham Diaw, dropped as guilty plea averts trial

The American singer and actor Chris Brown has admitted attacking a man in a private members’ club in London after playing a gig at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium in 2023.

Brown will be sentenced in October for what prosecutors called an “unprovoked attack” with a bottle on the music producer Abraham Diaw at the Tape club in Hanover Square, Mayfair.

Brown and his co-defendant and vocal coach Omololu Akinlolu had been facing trial later this year after pleading not guilty to more serious assault charges, as well as charges of possessing an offensive weapon – a bottle. On Friday, those charges were dropped as both men pleaded guilty to the less-serious offence of affray at Southwark crown court.

Prosecutors said Brown hit Diaw twice over the head with a glass bottle before Akinlolu joined in, punching the victim in the head. Diaw was also kicked while sitting on the floor, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

At a previous hearing, the court had been told Brown pursued Diaw through the nightclub during the attack on 19 February 2023. Diaw went to St Mary’s hospital in London with head and knee injuries.

Brown was arrested more than two years after the attack. Metropolitan police detectives detained him at 2am on 15 May 2025 at the Lowry hotel in Manchester where he was said to have arrived on a private jet for UK dates on his Breezy Bowl tour.

He was released from Forest Bank prison in Salford, Greater Manchester, six days later, and posted an Instagram story shortly afterwards referencing his upcoming tour that said: “FROM THE CAGE TO THE STAGE!!! BREEZYBOWL.”

On Friday, the senior crown prosecutor at CPS London South, Claire Campbell, said Brown and Akinlolu were guilty of a “vicious and unprovoked attack … in a crowded nightclub where Brown used a glass bottle as a weapon to strike the victim’s head twice”.

“This kind of violence is entirely unacceptable, and the Crown Prosecution Service will work tirelessly – with the police and partners across the criminal justice system – to pursue cases like this and prove that no one is above the law.”

Brown appeared for Friday’s hearing wearing a tan suit, gold-rimmed sunglasses and a St Louis Cardinals baseball hat. He was flanked by security guards as he arrived at court, where a small group of fans had gathered.

At earlier hearings, Brown had been ordered to pay a £5m security fee as part of his bail conditions, which also allowed him to go on a world tour as long as he surrendered his passport on arrival in each country. He was released on bail again on Friday.

It is the latest in a series of legal troubles for Brown – including previous instances of assault. In 2009, he was sentenced to five years’ probation and six months’ community labour for beating up his former partner, the pop singer Rihanna. Police investigating that incident described a brutal attack in which Brown hit, choked and bit Rihanna, as well as trying to to push her from a car they were in.