During a show in Boise, Idaho, singer Kelsea Ballerini was hit in the face by an object thrown from the crowd, marking yet another instance this month where a woman performing live has either been hit with something or assaulted by a fan.
In clips posted to Twitter and TikTok on Wednesday, Ballerini can be seen performing “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too),” when something hits her face and she turns away from the crowd. She ended up having to leave the stage, but returned to finish the set, and urged the crowd to be safe and not throw things.
In another clip filmed from the crowd, you can see someone holding up what looks like a friendship bracelet, and then throwing it and hitting Ballerini. As a fan account noted, “throwing things on stage where artists are already so vulnerable is NOT the move.”
Earlier this month, singer Bebe Rexha was hit in the face by a phone thrown by a fan, who thought it’d “be funny.” Rexha required stitches. A couple of days later, singer Ava Max was assaulted by a fan who jumped on stage.
“Are we finally at the point where fans have lost all sense of boundries?” said one commenter on the r/popheads subreddit.
Last weekend, during Pink‘s headlining set at British Summer Time in London, a fan threw their mother’s ashes on stage, and Pink responded, “I don’t know how I feel about this.” (She was also given a wheel of Brie.)
More fans are going back to live events now, but it seems like some people think the boundary between fan and performer is gone. Is this the result of stan culture making fans feel more entitled to their favorites? A pandemic decline in social etiquette? Harry Styles was hit by a Skittle during a live show last year, and country singer Kane Brown took a boot to the crotch in April. But this recent trend of women being pelted with things and sometimes injured as a result is concerning.
