Celebrity News: Patti LaBelle issue counter lawsuit to man allegedly attacked by her staff

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Patti LaBelle issue counter lawsuit to man allegedly attacked by her staff

30 June 2011

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Patti Labelle has filed a countersuit against a man who says the star's bodyguards attacked him at an airport earlier this year.

The Lady Marmalade singer is accussed of ordering her security staff to assault Richard King at an airport in Texas in March.

A security video was released following the alleged attack which shows a bloody King being punched and pushed by two men and a woman, believed to be LaBelle's guards.

King begun a lawsuit earlier this month, seeking actual and punitive damages but now the singer has filed her own papers, alleging King started the altercation by hurling racist insults at her.

LaBelle's lawyers are also accusing King of being intoxicated, attempting to get into the singer's limo, screaming obscenities. They claim he threw the first punch.

The papers state: "King directed profane and racial slurs towards LaBelle. When LaBelle's son (Zuri Edwards) heard the profanity and racial epithets, he informed King that the woman in the limousine was his mother.

Without warning or provocation, King violently and deliberately punched Edwards in the face."

The 23-year-ol's lawyers state,although he had had a couple of drinks, he was not drunk.