Rapper Azealia Banks thrown out of Hollywood party in bust-up with Russell Crowe

The unlikely pair were dining together in LA on Saturday night 
Row: Azealia Banks had a row with Russell Crowe at a dinner party on Saturday
Richard Isaac/REX
Robert Dex @RobDexES17 October 2016
The Weekender

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Russell Crowe was caught up in an extraordinary row with rapper Azealia Banks after she was thrown out of a star-studded Hollywood party.

Azealia, 25, claimed the Oscar-winning actor assaulted her, spat at her and called her a “n****r” before ejecting her from his hotel suite.

However, witnesses reportedly said Crowe, 52, stepped in when she became abusive and violent to other guests, and that she had repeatedly used the n-word.

It came as she explained in an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard how she is trying to "mellow out" after she became one of the most loathed women in pop.

The singer is thought to have gone to Saturday night’s party at the Beverly Hills Hotel as a guest of rapper RZA, who appeared with Crowe in martial arts film The Man With The Iron Fist and recently signed Banks to his record label.

Row: Russell Crowe threw Azealia Banks out of his party
Daniel Boczarski/Getty

In a post on Facebook that she later deleted, the rapper said: “To recap my night, I went to a party at Russell Crowe’s suite, at which he called me a n****r, choked me, threw me out and spat at me. The men in the room allowed it to happen. I feel terrible today.”

Banks, who also said she felt “mishandled” after the incident, appealed for “someone to beat him up for me” in another since-deleted Facebook post.

A spokesman for Banks today said the singer was “shell-shocked” and would speak out on the incident.

A different version of events emerged from witnesses who claimed the trouble started when Azealia laughed at Crowe’s music selection and called him and at least one other guest “boring white men”.

She was then alleged to have threatened to cut fellow guests with a glass, repeatedly using the n-word in an angry diatribe.

Crowe has not commented but sources say the actor picked her up and ejected her from the hotel suite.

The US star is no stranger to controversy and earlier this year was dropped from a festival in east London after making racial insults at former One Direction singer Zayn Malik on social media. In an interview in today’s Evening Standard, Banks says she realised it was “time to stop being a crazy girl”.

Speaking about the row with Malik, she said: “You know sometimes you get carried away when you’re joking. There’s this crude, ignorant, mixed-up New York City humour where people call each other all kinds of f***ed-up shit.

"I use the n-word all the time. I was being stupid, not trying to be hurtful.”

In 2002 Crowe was spoken to by police after an alleged brawl in Knightbridge’s Zuma restaurant.

He also apologised after a heated argument with a TV executive at that year’s Bafta film awards after his planned appearance was cut from the broadcast of the show.

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