The 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards haven’t even aired yet and the ceremony is already the talk of the town thanks to a backstage fight that took place during taping on Sept. 29. Since then, there’s been little concrete evidence, sans some videos, about the specifics of the fight and media outlets have been reporting from hearsay and tweets. But now, BET’s president of music programming and specials, Stephen G. Hill, has spoken with Complex and explained what really happened that night.
During the candid interview, Hill holds back nothing as he confirms that there was a confrontation between Rick Ross and Young Jeezy that turned into a fight between their two crews.
“There was absolutely an altercation behind the stage, it involved the crews of Ross and Jeezy. Ross and Jeezy passed each other in the hall. There was some shoving — it never turned into a fight. They realized it’s an awards show,” Hill revealed.
“Maybe some members of the crew weren’t thinking that way,” Hill added. “It was a dust-up, and it was over like that. I mean I’ve seen it on TMZ, there happened to be a mirror there, they weren’t throwing the mirror — it kind of just got in the way. If you look, people are trying to avoid the mirror as it falls. And Ross is walking towards the stage. This happened right before he went on stage.”
Despite the fight, Hill says that Ross immediately performed right after the fight and that neither he nor Jeezy were involved in the actual scuffle.
Hill also denied rumors that there were gunshots at the awards show.
“You heard about gunshots in the parking lot because somebody heard somebody say something, and they carelessly tweeted [it]. Now they may have heard pyro, but no one has said there was gunshots in the parking lot. Police would’ve closed this down a completely different way had there been gunshots. If there’s gunshots, your show’s not going on. Everything comes to a halt. Nothing came to a halt.”
Read the rest of Hill’s revealing interview here and check out some other hip-hop beefs that got violent below. –nicholas robinson
