Dr. Dre Reflects on Dee Barnes Attack: ‘I F—ed Up, I Apologize for It’ [VIDEO]
Dr. Dre opens up about his 1991 assault on famed journalist Dee Barnes on Monday’s episode (July 10) of HBO’s docu-series, The Defiant Ones.
For those who don’t know, in January 1991, Dr. Dre viciously attacked Dee Barnes during an album release party at a nightclub. She claims the legendary producer banged her head several times up against a wall and kicked her repeatedly. The beating was so brutal that Barnes still suffers horrific migraines following the attack.
Dre discusses the matter at length in the documentary and says that the incident has been a major blemish to his character. “Any man that puts his hands on a female is a f---ing idiot,” he says. “He’s out of his f---ing mind, and I was out of my f---ing mind at the time. I f---ed up, I paid for it, I’m sorry for it, I apologize for it.”
“I have this dark cloud that follows me,” he adds. “It’s attached to me forever. It’s a major blemish on who I am as a man.”
In an essay for Gawker, Dee Barn addressed the assault by Dre and how the incident was mysteriously absent in the Straight Outta Compton movie. “That event isn’t depicted in Straight Outta Compton, but I don’t think it should have been, either,” she wrote at the time of the film's release. “The truth is too ugly for a general audience. I didn’t want to see a depiction of me getting beat up, just like I didn’t want to see a depiction of Dre beating up Michel’le, his one-time girlfriend who recently summed up their relationship this way: ‘I was just a quiet girlfriend who got beat on and told to sit down and shut up.’”
Part 3 of HBO's docu-series The Defiant Ones airs tonight at 9PM ET.