Dr. Dre acknowledges he made “some fucking horrible mistakes” on his rise to stardom ahead of the release of N.W.A. biopic “Straight Outta Compton.”
The legendary producer addressed allegations that he beat female TV host Dee Barnes at a Los Angeles nightclub in 1991, as well as more recent charges of physical abuse from his ’90s girlfriend Michel’le, in the August issue of 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,” Dre said. “Those are some of the things that I would like to take back … But I paid for those mistakes, and there’s no way in Hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again.”
The magazine covered the incident in the 1991 article “N.W.A.: Beating Up the Charts,” which described the altercation as follows:
According to a statement issued by Barnes, Dre picked her up and “began slamming her face and the right side of her body repeatedly against a wall near the stairway” as his bodyguard held off the crowd. After Dre tried to throw her down the stairs and failed, he began kicking her in the ribs and hands. She escaped and ran into the women’s restroom. Dre followed her and “grabbed her from behind by the hair and proceeded to punch her in the back of the head.”
Dre did not deny it, either.
“People talk all this shit, but you know, somebody fucks with me, I’m gonna fuck with them,” Dre told the magazine at the time. “I just did it, you know. Ain’t nothing you can do now by talking about it. Besides, it ain’t no big thing — I just threw her through a door.”
N.W.A. has long been criticized for its treatment of women in song lyrics, which Ice Cube dismissed in the more recent Rolling Stone article about the group.
“If you’re a bitch, you’re probably not going to like us,” he said. “If you’re a ho, you probably don’t like us. If you’re not a ho or a bitch, don’t be jumping to the defense of these despicable females. Just like I shouldn’t be jumping to the defense of no punks or no cowards or no slimy son of a bitches that’s men. I never understood why an upstanding lady would even think we’re talking about her.”
“Straight Outta Compton” hits theaters on Friday. It has already garnered praise from critics, and is expected to dominate the weekend box office.