The 27-year-old man who threw a phone at Bebe Rexha’s face while she performed in New York City, leaving her needing multiple stitches, said he assaulted the singer because he “thought it would be funny.” Nicholas Malvagna was arrested after he was found to have deliberately thrown the phone at Rexha during the performance at Pier 17 on Sunday night. Rexha received stitches at a local hospital, according to Rolling Stone. She later took to Instagram to post selfies of her injuries, which she captioned, “I’m good.”
After being taken into custody, Malvagna was charged with two counts of third-degree assault, one count of second-degree harassment, one count of second-degree aggravated harassment, and one count of third-degree attempted assault.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said that instead of expressing remorse and being apologetic about what he’d done, Nicolas Malvagna found the whole thing amusing and outright admitted that he was trying to hit Bebe Rexha.
Absolutely great show ruined by a fan throwing their phone at @BebeRexha hopefully she is ok after that pic.twitter.com/4eBScgurv5
— Alex Chavez (@captiv_8_) June 19, 2023
Needless to say, people have been pretty outraged by the incident, pointing out how often men assault women with impunity and as some kind of bizarre violent joke.
“It is almost like the global pastime of harassing and abusing high profile women for sport and thrills has created a situation where some people feel empowered to do whatever they want to any high profile women they can get near enough to,” wrote @GenXpunk69, though I would point out that it’s hardly just famous women. They just have a bigger platform to have their stories heard.
Sadly, it’s unlikely that Malvagna will spend any time behind bars for his actions. It’s a real shame and much of the reason that things like this continue to happen — there are no real, meaningful consequences for these thugs. Here’s hoping it hasn’t put Bebe Rexha off from ever wanting to perform again.
I wanted this quote over one of those pretty wallpapers pic.twitter.com/RyC2ReBWOy
— Victor Rivera (@vicfornj) June 20, 2023
God really making anybody fr. pic.twitter.com/s3NbMsP6ft
— KÆLZ (@UNHINGEDKELZ) June 20, 2023
