Suge Knight Almost Beat Down Marcellus Wiley: ‘I Punked Out’

Max & Marcellus host Marcellus Wiley had an interesting run-in with Suge Knight years ago that almost turned into more than he wanted to handle. Knight is, of course, one of the most notorious figures in hip-hop history--with a well-earned fearsome reputation. Currently incarcerated on a murder charge, Knight was a lot more formidable when Wiley crossed his path.

Speaking to HipHopDX, Wiley revealed just how close he came to a bad situation with Suge.

“I was at a club and we had, like, two tables combined, so we sit down at one and [the hostess] is looking for the [people at] the other one, I’m like, ‘let’s just take this one next to us.’” shared Wiley. “[The hostess] was like, ‘No I don’t think you can use that one.’ I was like ‘Why? I thought you said we had two tables.’

"So we just take over cause there’s too many of us and nobody’s there. I love getting to clubs early. I don’t know why, cause I’ma spend thousands of dollars so I wanna get my money’s worth. So I’m there, and all the sudden we hear the security like ‘Y’all gotta get up. Y’all gotta get up. That’s supposed to be Suge’s table.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, well if it’s Suge’s table I’m about to get up but I don’t want to. Next thing you know [The] Game went up and he started freestyling and rapping at the club so I’m like, ‘Forget that, Game’s rapping, I ain’t moving,’ and I kinda got absent-minded. Suge’s supposed to have his table.

“So all of a sudden everybody just starts scattering and stuff,” Wiley continues. “Next thing you know I’m like damn near at the table by myself. I’m like ‘What the hell done happened? Everybody dipped,’ and they were like ‘Yo, Suge’s table came.’ So, I get up. I move somewhere else, I punked out, I had to! (Laughs) I mean this is Death Row days!* So we get outside and I’m in a Rolls Royce, a white Phantom and I’m sitting there and it’s almost like the Jaws music starts going off, ‘Duhn-Duhn Duhn-Duhn.’ I’m lookin’ around and then Game and Willie McGinest came up to me and were like, ‘Dawg, you better get outta here.’ I’m like, ‘What’s up?’ And supposedly [Suge and his people] took me not getting up [from their table] immediately as like beef and Suge and his people were looking for me. I was like ‘whoa.’ So I bail out. I get outta there.”

Wiley says he ran into Knight a few days later and everything was smoothed over.

“Maybe a week or two later I see Suge and then we chopped it up, I was like ‘Dawg, I heard you was sending your boys after me,'" Wiley recalled.  "He was like ‘That was you Wiley? My bad (Laughs),’ I was like ‘Man you almost got me killed up in there talkin’ bout ‘My bad!’ So the moral of the story is:  if you get to the club early be prepared to move!"