Rapper Lil Nas X has entered a not guilty plea to four felony charges following his arrest last Thursday, after being spotted wandering along Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles wearing nothing but white cowboy boots and underwear.
Court documents from Los Angeles Superior Court reveal the musician, born Montero Hill, has been charged with three counts of assaulting a police officer and one count of resisting an executive officer.
Initially held over the weekend, he appeared before Judge Sarah Ellenberg at Van Nuys on Monday morning. His bail was set at $75,000, significantly lower than the $300,000 originally recommended in his felony complaint.
Freed from custody later that afternoon, Lil Nas X now awaits a pre-trial hearing scheduled for September 15. If found guilty, he could face up to five years in prison.
“Assaulting police officers is not just an offence against them as individuals, but a direct threat to public safety,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement. “Regardless of fame or status, anyone who attacks law enforcement will face serious consequences.”
The Los Angeles Police Department initially refrained from identifying the star but confirmed that an incoherent, unclothed man had been detained and taken to hospital at around 5:50 am. Soon after, TMZ published footage of Lil Nas X walking the street, followed by a separate clip of him entirely nude while rapping Nicki Minaj’s verse from Monster.
According to police reports, officers had responded to early-morning calls about a naked man behaving erratically. He was arrested for assaulting an officer and hospitalised amid concerns of a possible overdose.
In the hours before his arrest, the artist had wiped much of his Instagram account, posting a series of erratic updates. Among them were snippets of new music, photos taken inside his home, and one image showing him in the same cowboy boots later seen in Thursday’s footage.