Take a look at the astronomical debts chewing up Travis Scott’s net worth
Has justice been served for the Astroworld tragedy? Rapper Travis Scott can now breathe a sigh of relief as a grand jury chose not to indict him over the horrifying incident at his 2021 Astroworld concert that claimed ten lives and injured hundreds. Houston District Attorney Kim Ogg revealed this unexpected turn of events last Thursday.
Does that mean his net worth will be able to pay for all the legal fees? Let’s take a look into his net worth and see what it can do for him.
No crime
He has a net worth of $80 million. His albums have reshaped the musical landscape. But what will that do to help his newest plight?
While the festival was unquestionably a tragedy, the grand jury made it clear that no crime had taken place. The person or people behind the catastrophic crowd rush remained undiscovered. “A tragedy isn’t always a crime, and not every death is a homicide,” Ogg commented. As it stands, neither Scott nor additional people linked to the festival, including festival manager Brent Silberstein, will face charges.
Scott’s attorney, Kent Schaffer, declared the decision a victory, asserting that they have always believed in the rapper’s innocence. With the looming threat of criminal charges dispelled, Travis can now pick up his career where he left off, free from any criminal prosecution.
Flashback to nearly two years ago when the annual Astroworld event held at NRG Park in Houston transformed from a music festival to a scene of devastation. The crowd’s surge led to hundreds of injuries and ten deaths, the majority succumbing to compression asphyxia, as per the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.
Ever since, a plethora of lawsuits have been targeted at Scott and the festival’s organizers, including the entertainment juggernaut Live Nation. Last year, Scott, Live Nation, and others settled a lawsuit with a family who had lost a loved one in the incident. Now, Scott is back in the spotlight, preparing to release his new album, Utopia. With marketing already in full swing, the music world is keenly waiting for the release date.
Horror night
Do we know what exactly happened on that fateful night? A deeper look into the sequence of events exposes unsettling truths. The Astroworld Festival’s layout led to a dangerous bottleneck. Witnesses described people collapsing under the crushing pressure of the crowd, which, at its peak, was as little as 1.85 square feet per person in some areas. Such extreme crowd density runs the risk of a crowd dangerously collapsing onto itself, warn crowd science experts.
There were unsettling lapses in safety measures too. The concert continued for nearly another hour despite concertgoers already pleading for help and receiving emergency care only sixteen minutes into the show. How long the concert was allowed to continue after fans were in distress remains a grave question.
Was the festival venue at NRG Park a disaster waiting to happen? The crowd filled up the main stage’s viewing area three hours before Scott’s performance. The scene got even more chaotic when another concert ended at the secondary stage around 8:30 p.m., and the audience from that show began to stream toward the already-packed main stage area.
The unforgotten
People described the terrifying experience of being pushed forward, unable to move in the opposite direction. The layout of the barriers, the sudden influx of people, and the increased crowd density turned the festival into an epicenter of chaos, with fans having little ability to exit. “In general, that’s not a safe design because you can’t regulate the number of people who are in a high-pressure area,” warns Keith Still, a crowd safety and crowd risk analysis specialist.
Did the fans who attended the concert deserve this horrific fate? Madison Dubiski, 23, 9-year-old Ezra Blount, and 23-year-old college student Rudy Peña were among the ten unfortunate souls who lost their lives. Eyewitnesses reported seeing multiple unconscious people lying atop each other only 16 minutes into the concert. Despite such early signs of distress, the concert continued for almost another hour.
Around 9:27 p.m., video evidence shows a woman being lifted from the crowd and receiving medical attention. Concertgoer Bill Nasser recounted the terrifying scene, saying, “People were literally on the floor getting their faces stomped in. … We were just trying to pull kids over that barricade.”
So, has justice been served for the Astroworld tragedy, or are there still unanswered questions lurking beneath the surface?
