Video of Drake appearing to fondle a 17-year-old fan on stage resurfaces amid Kendrick Lamar feud
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- Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s feud is escalating, and in one diss track, Lamar accuses him of pedophilia.
- After the release of “Not Like Us,” an old video of Drake kissing and fondling a 17-year-old fan onstage resurfaced.
- The incident happened at a 2010 concert in Denver. Drake didn’t comment on it when it first circulated in 2019.
An old video of Drake dancing with and kissing a 17-year-old has resurfaced again amid the rapper’s feud with Kendrick Lamar.
The video was taken in May 2010 at Drake’s Denver, Colorado, concert at the Ogden Theater, according to The Guardian. It captures the rapper inviting a female fan onstage, dancing with her, then kissing her and touching her breasts in front of the cheering crowd.
He then asks how old she is, and reacts along with the laughing crowd when she answers 17.
“I can’t go to jail yet, man!” shouts Drake, to amused cheers from the crowd. “Why do you look like that?!”
“Well look, I had fun,” he continues. “I don’t know whether I should feel guilty or not, but I had fun. I like the way your breasts feel against my chest. I just want to thank you.”
After kissing her face several more times, the rapper sends her offstage.
Drake would have been 23 at the time of the video, and Colorado’s age of consent is 17.
The video appears to have resurfaced on several forums, including Reddit, after the release of Kendrick Lamar’s diss tracks “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us.” In the former, released Friday, Lamar suggests Drake is a “predator” and says he’s got “sex offenders” at his record label, OVO.
In “Not Like Us,” released less than a day later, Lamar outright calls Drake and his entourage pedophiles: “Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles,” he raps in an apparent reference to the singer’s 2021 album. Later, he raps: “Tryna strike a chord, and it’s probably A-minor.”
Drake denied the pedophilia allegations in his own response track “The Heart Part 6,” released Sunday, saying that Lamar “collected and dissected” TikTok videos to come up with “this Epstein angle” (referencing the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein). Drake raps in the song that he’s never been with anyone who’s underage: “If I was fucking young girls, I promise I’d have been arrested / I’m way too famous for this shit you just suggested.”
In the song, Drake also brings up Millie Bobby Brown — “Only fuckin’ with Whitneys, not Millie Bobby Browns, I’d never look twice at no teenager” — apparently referencing the criticism he’d received in the past for his friendship with the then-14-year-old “Stranger Things” star that many deemed inappropriate.
Representatives for Drake and Lamar didn’t immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
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The video of Drake first circulated in 2019
The clip first resurfaced in January 2019 amid discussion about the Lifetime documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly,” which portrayed allegations against R. Kelly as part of what accusers have called a “sex cult.” (The docuseries prompted additional investigations into the rapper, and R. Kelly was ultimately convicted on racketeering and sex trafficking charges involving sexual abuse of minors in September 2021. He is currently serving a 31-year prison sentence.)
The series depicts how R. Kelly enjoyed massive success even after he wed now-deceased pop star Aaliyah when she was 15 and had a sex tape leaked that showed him with a 14-year-old girl. Though the singer was later arrested on child pornography charges, he continued to work as a musician, collaborating with major artists.
In 2019, many who took issue with the video of Drake compared his encounter with the 17-year-old to Kelly’s behavior.
At the time, fans were also concerned about Drake’s friendship with Brown. The teen referred to Drake as “a great friend and a great role model” in September 2018 when speaking to Access Hollywood on the Emmys red carpet.
“We just texted each other the other day, and he was like, ‘I miss you so much,’ and I was like, ‘I miss you more,'” she said.
After outcry from users across social media who found her comments suspect, Brown defended her friendship with the rapper, calling concern “weird.” Drake also called out “weirdos” who were talking about his friendship with Brown in his song “Another Late Night,” released in October 2023.
The criticism that followed Brown’s description of their relationship in 2018 was most likely fueled by Drake’s previous connection to then-18-year-old model Bella Harris.
Drake and Harris knew each other for several years before rumors that the two were dating circulated in 2018, when Harris was 18 and Drake was 31. According to People, Harris’ since-removed Instagram posts show the two spending time together as far back as 2016, when she was 16.
Page Six later reported Drake having dinner with an unidentified woman in Washington DC, and Harris denied the suggestion it was her.
A source close to Drake shut down the rumors in September 2018, telling ET that he and the model were not and had never been dating.
