Chris Brown Pleads Guilty to Affray Over London Nightclub Attack

Chris Brown pleaded guilty to a charge of “affray” — and had the more serious counts against him dropped — at a hearing Friday over an alleged London nightclub attack.

The singer was arrested in May 2025 and charged with assault, suspicion of grievous bodily harm, and possession of an offensive weapon (a tequila bottle). The incident occurred in February 2023, where Brown and his co-defendant Omololu “Hoody Baby” Akinlolu allegedly attacked and stomped on music producer Amadou “Abe” Diaw at a London nightclub.

Brown and Akinlolu both previously pleaded not guilty to those charges, and at a short hearing Friday, the pair pleaded guilty to a charge of affray, while the more serious charges were dropped by the court, the BBC reports.

A charge of “affray” stems from someone who “fights with another person in a public place to the terror of the 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.”

Both Brown and Akinlolu were again released on bail following the guilty plea and will return to the U.K. on September 26 for sentencing; the pair face a maximum of three years in prison.

“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,” Crown Prosecution Service senior prosecutor Claire Campbell said Friday. “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.”

Diaw previously filed a $16 million lawsuit against Brown over the incident, but dropped the lawsuit in June 2025; it’s unclear if the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement.