Azealia Banks won't take legal action

21 October 2016

Azealia Banks won't take legal action against Russell Crowe.

Azealia Banks

The 25-year-old rapper was previously said to have filed a police report following an alleged incident in the 52-year-old actor's hotel room in Beverly Hills at the weekend, during which she claims he "choked" her and "spat" at her before throwing her out of the room, but she has now decided not to take the matter further because she just wants to focus on her music and not let her career be overshadowed by scandal.

She told Us Weekly magazine: "Realistically, to be honest, I really don't want to. Because I just don't want this in the media. I want my music out. I just want to f***ing put my music out.

"I just want my music to shine. I don't want to be dealing with another episode, another thing, another whatever."

Despite a number of sources, including producer RZA disputing Azealia's account of what happened and insisting she was at fault, the '212' hitmaker insists she does want an apology from the 'Noah' star.

She said: "[Russell] feels that he did nothing wrong, so I'm just like, OK, if you want to pay a bunch of litigators and a bunch of people to apologise to me, then I guess that's what you want to do.

"You could apologise to me for free now and make this all go away."

While it has been reported Azealia was behaving "erratically" and threatened to harm Russell's guests, she insists that wasn't the case - and if she had been, the actor should have had the "sense" to get security guards to remove her from his suite, rather than personally eject her.

She said: "Even if I were being erratic, you should have enough sense to have me escorted out properly and keep your hands and your spit to yourself."

This isn't the first time Azealia - who was banned from Twitter this summer over offensive remarks she made towards Zayn Malik - has been embroiled in controversy and she insists she isn't worried about clearing her name in the row with Russell as her reputation is "already f***ed".

She added: "Even if I were proven to be telling the truth in this situation, people have built their case up against me, and honestly I don't have the care or the time to try and fight millions ... like, I can't fight the whole world.

"I am tired of defending myself. You know, it's just really unfortunate. People are going to think whatever they want to think about me. Y'all need to think about this damn music."