“Traumatic experiences are not new to me and I have had my fair share of them,” she said.
Britney Spears has shared her side of a disturbing incident that apparently took place this week.
Writing on Instagram, the star says she tried to approach NBA rookie Victor Wembanyama to congratulate him after a game in Las Vegas on Wednesday, when his security “backhanded me in the face without looking back.”
Britney Spears describes being “backhanded” by Wembanyama’s security
Spears doesn’t name Wembanyama in her post, but acknowledges that the story was already “out in the world.”
She says that she recognized Wembanyama at a restaurant where they’d both headed to dinner after a game earlier in the day. She says she tried to get Wembanyama’s attention by tapping him on the back.
“I decided to approach him and congratulate him on his success. It was really loud, so I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention,” she writes.
Spears says that she is “aware of the player’s statement where he mentions ‘I grabbed him from behind’ but I simply tapped him on the shoulder. His security then backhanded me in the face without looking back, in front of a crowd.” She says that the slap nearly knocked her down.
Wembanyama tells reporters he didn’t see what happened
Speaking to the press on Thursday, Wembanyama said that he hadn’t seen what happened. He explained that he’d been walking to the restaurant with his team through a swarm of people. He said he heard someone calling him, then felt a person “grab me from behind.”
“That person was calling me, ‘Sir, sir,’ and that person grabbed me from behind,” he said. “I didn’t see what happened because I was walking straight and they told me ‘don’t stop.’ But that person grabbed me from behind – not on my shoulder, she grabbed me from behind. I just know the security pushed her away. I don’t know with how much force though, but security pushed her away. I didn’t stop to look.”
He added that his security had advised him not to stop while moving through the crowd.
Asked whether he was aware that the person who’d touched him was Britney Spears, he replied, “I didn’t know for a couple hours.”
“Then the security of the Spurs told me it was Britney Spears,” he added later. “At first, I was like, ‘No, you’re joking,’ but yeah, it turns out it was Britney Spears. I never saw her face. I just kept walking straight.”
Spears is speaking out as a matter of respect
“I get swarmed by people all the time,” Spears stresses in her post. “In fact, that night. I was swarmed by a group of at least 20 fans. My security team didn’t hit any of them.”
“Traumatic experiences are not new to me and I have had my fair share of them. I was not prepared for what happened to me last night,” Spears explains. She adds that while the story is “super embarrassing” to share, she believes it’s important to urge everyone in the public eye to treat people with respect.
