LOS ANGELES
Reuters
A four-concert festival in Canada has been cancelled after its headliner, R&B singer Chris Brown, had to pull out for personal and health reasons, the festival’s promoter said on Monday.
“After ongoing conversation and consultation with this year’s headline act Chris Brown, and in light of the performer’s recent personal and health-related issues, a decision has been made to cancel all four scheduled performances,” Drop Entertainment Group owner Stephen Tobin said in a statement about the Energy/Summer Rush Canadian concert series that was to run August 29 to September 1. “In the absence of a festival headliner, we cannot proceed.”
Brown, 24, is on probation in California for assaulting former girlfriend and fellow singer Rihanna in 2009, and has become a polarizing figure after the assault, which took place in Los Angeles on the eve of that year’s Grammy awards. Neither the promoter nor Brown’s publicist elaborated on the issues behind the cancellation. But the publicist did confirm that the Grammy winner suffered a non-epileptic seizure on August 9 in Los Angeles. The decision also comes after some sponsors, including Canadian telecom company Rogers Communications Inc. and Molson Coors Brewing Co., pulled their affiliation with the concert in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after Brown was named as a performer.