So you may have heard about Mark McAdams brush with the paparazzi after he defended friend Mike Myers. The event made headlines after a member of the paparazzi was struck in the head with a hockey stick. The alleged “attack” follows the recent release of Mark’s third solo album ‘Paper Man Songs’. In response to the recent incident involving Mark McAdam and his run-in with the paparazzi, Mark made the following statement:
You can also read Mark’s statement on the blog section of his website (www.markmcadam.com)
Hello Friends.
You may have read some stuff on the internet or newspapers and you’re probably wondering what happened on Sunday. Allow me to lay out the broad strokes all at once. I’ve received a million emails and calls and it’s too complicated to tell over and over…
The first and most important thing is that I DID NOT HIT ANYONE IN THE HEAD WITH MY HOCKEY STICK. That’s something I would simply never do, and it’s what the paparazzi made up to make their story more juicy. That’s how they make their money. Which is one thing if they just lie about you in a blog, but another thing if the cops choose to believe them. Because then it goes into the police report. Which it did. And now I’m facing felony assault charges…
So, it’s like this: I was walking home from our hockey game with Mike Myers and Eric Gilliland. We crossed paths with a bunch of paparazzi who were pursuing Kate Hudson and her newborn. One of them saw Mike, alerted the others, and they came after us. I should note that there were 7 or 8 of them and extraordinarily aggressive. We’ve been through this dozens of times: Their M.O. is to try to annoy Mike to the point that he’ll take a swing at them or whatever and then they’ll sell the “celebrity freaking out” pics to the tabloids.
So eventually Mike tries to run away. Now they’re chasing us. It seems kind of funny, I bet, but really it’s sort of scary because they’ll shove you out of the way and scream in your face… and there’s a lot of them. I decided to try to slow them down to give Mike a chance to escape. So I ran across Rivington (near Eldridge) and, let’s say “impeded the progress” of this guy Castro. I bumped into him. Now he’s pissed. He puts down his camera and comes at me, grabbing my hockey stick. As we’re tussling with my stick, he yanks it toward himself, trying to get it away from me. Very unfortunately, this caused the blade to scrape his eyebrow. Eyebrows bleed A LOT.
Once the other paparazzi saw blood… well, now they’ve got a story. So they get a firm grip on me and start filming. While two of them had my arms, Castro headbutts me in the face, Zidane style. Good shot, too. Probably broke my nose, I get the X-rays tomorrow. Of course, all my instincts were telling me to fight back, but I was also aware that that was exactly what they wanted. The cameras were rolling. Then he punched me in the head. Got a nice little shiner there. And three other guys dragged me into the street, holding me so I “wouldn’t go anywhere” because they had called the police. “Thank God,” I thought. “The police would be great right about now.”
Except when the police got there (maybe 10-12 of ‘em) the paparazzi start pointing at the bloody guy and screaming that I hit him in the head with my stick. Eric and I calmly offered that that wasn’t true, etc, that I had yet to take a swing at anybody with anything… but they simply (and really, inexplicably) took the paparazzi at their word. Castro walked away laughing. They cuffed me, put me in the squad car, and took me to the cell at the precinct. Fingerprints, booking, mugshots, belt, shoelaces, then down to Centre Street to the real jail, one metal door, two metal doors, underground, more metal doors, and put me in the cell with several other fellows. The only smart thing I did all day was to immediately befriend the biggest guy in there by offering him my torn hoodie (it’s freezing down there).
I had plenty of time to reflect on my thoughts about our legal system, the NYPD, and my aching face.
Going forward, I’m optimistic – I have a very good lawyer and there might even be video proving my innocence. At my arraignment, the judge seemed to smell B.S. and let me out on my own recognizance (he didn’t even make us post the $5,000 bail the state asked for). Also, we’re pressing counter charges. It should be fine.
But still. Really?
Your Hot-Tempered but Non-Violent Friend,
Mark
