Singer Chris Brown pleads guilty over bottle attack at a London nightclub

LONDON (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown pleaded guilty Friday to brawling at a London nightclub in 2023 when he hit a music producer on the head with a bottle.

Brown, 37, previously had denied more serious charges over what prosecutors called a “vicious attack.” He changed his plea Friday during a hearing at London’s Southwark Crown Court, pleading guilty to a count of affray.

In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of assault, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and having an offensive weapon, a bottle.

Brown’s friend and vocal coach Omololu Akinlolu also pleaded guilty to affray. The two men had been due to stand trial in October.

Brown had denied attacking Abraham Diaw with a bottle at the Tape nightclub in the swanky Mayfair neighborhood in February 2023. But prosecutors said the fight was caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people.

The affray charge accepted by the defendants states that “Chris Brown and Omololu Akinlolu on February 19 2023 used or threatened unlawful violence towards another and their conduct taken together was such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety.”

“This was a vicious and unprovoked attack by Brown and Akinlolu in a crowded nightclub where Brown used a glass bottle as a weapon to strike the victim’s head twice,” Claire Campbell, a senior prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service, said after the guilty plea.

Akinlolu joined in and punched the victim in the head, prosecutors said.

“This kind of violence is entirely unacceptable, and the Crown Prosecution Service will work tirelessly – with the police and partners across the criminal justice system – to pursue cases like this, and prove that no one is above the law,” Campbell said.

Brown left the United Kingdom after the brawl but was arrested in May 2025 at a Manchester hotel after flying to the city for a concert.

Brown had been free on bail of 5 million pounds ($6.7 million), which allowed him to tour Europe and North America last summer. He was freed on bail again Friday and will be sentenced Oct. 26 on the affray charge, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

Brown, wearing a tan suit, gold-rimmed sunglasses and a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap, signed autographs for fans as he left the courthouse.

Brown, who rose to stardom as a teen in 2005, won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E.” He earned his second in the same category for “11:11 (Deluxe)” in 2025.

He has been in repeated legal trouble since his felony conviction in the 2009 assault of his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, hours before the pair were due to perform at the Grammys.

In 2013 Brown was charged with misdemeanor assault for striking a man outside a Washington, D.C., hotel in 2013. The singer was ordered into rehab then dismissed from the facility for violating its rules.

He has been arrested in several U.S. states over altercations, and in 2019 he was arrested in Paris and questioned on suspicion of rape. He was released without charge.

Jill Lawless And Brian Melley, The Associated Press