Rihanna & Chris Brown's $1M Hit (Not the Good Kind)
E! Online, Dec 3, 2008 4:00 pm PSTA photographer won't stop the music until Rihanna and Chris Brown have forked over $1 million. "Once I snapped pictures of Chris and Rihanna, Chris jumped out of the limo and his bodyguards began chasing me," Santana says.
Luis Santana, a shutterbug for Florida's St. Petersburg Times, is suing the R&B crooners, claiming their bodyguards beat him and confiscated his camera after he caught them leaving the Vintage Ultra Lounge together in early May.
Santana tells E! News he was invited to the nightclub to take pictures of the twosome celebrating Brown's 19th birthday. He said Brown's bodyguards told him he could not photograph the couple inside the club, but he could shoot them in the parking lot.
"One of the guys ripped my shirt off and grabbed me. They threw me to the ground and started kicking me. One of the guys put his knee in my face and was pressing down. I thought my jaw was going to break."
Reps for Brown and Rihanna did not immediately respond to an E! News request for comment.
According to the police report, "the suspects then took the victim's camera, breaking it then leaving the scene in a black Excursion limousine." No charges have been filed in the case because, police say, of conflicting accounts of what transpired.
So Santana has gone the lawsuit route, filing his complaint yesterday. The action's million-dollar price tag covers the cost of the camera, the photos lost and compensation for his injuries and emotional distress.
Despite their matching tattoos, the chart-toppers have steadfastly denied their togetherness, and Santana suspects this was the reason for their reaction.
"At the time they were just a rumored couple, " Santana tells E!. "Chris was celebrating his birthday with her and that was a huge photo. I guess they didn't want it out."
James Guttridge, owner of Vintage nightclub, which is also named in the suit, tells E! News, "What happened was unfortunate, but aside from being the host of the event, we had no part in the altercation."
—Additional reporting by Whitney English
(Orignally published Dec. 3, 2008 at 9:04 a.m. PT.)
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