Dr. Dre on Brutally Attacking Dee Barnes: 'I Was Out of My F*cking Mind'

Dr. Dre addressed attacking Dee Barnes in 'The Defiant Ones.'

In January of 1991, Dr. Dre approached former television show host Dee Barnes at a party in Hollywood over an interview she conducted with Ice Cube where Cube bad-mouthed Dre's group N.W.A., with whom Cube was beefing with at the time.

According to a Rolling Stone article from August of 1991, Barnes said that "Dre picked her up" and "began slamming her face and the right side of her body repeatedly against a wall near the stairway" as his bodyguard held off the crowd. After Dre tried to throw her down the stairs and failed, he began kicking her in the ribs and hands." Dre then followed Barnes into the women's bathroom and "grabbed her from behind by the hair and proceeded to punch her in the back of the head." Dre is said to have then fled the scene with his bodyguard.

After there was no inclusion of this incident (or other incidents of abuse against women from Dre's past) in the 2015 N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Comption, Michel'le (who Dre was in a romantic relationship with) spoke out about why these issues weren't included, Dre apologized for his past abuse issues with women, which prompted Barnes to pen an essay on her situation with Dre and how it affected her life since.

"Is it damage control by Apple," Barnes wrote, "which can no longer ignore that if you take the “Beats by Dre' logo and remove the 'S,' you get a double entendre describing several woman he just apologized to? Is Dre himself really remorseful or just saving face?"

During the second part of The Defiant Ones, HBO's docuseries on Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, Dre once again addressed his past issues with abuse towards women. "Any man that puts his hands on a female is a fucking idiot," Dre begins. "He's out of his fucking mind, and I was out of my fucking mind at the time. I fucked up, I paid for it, I'm sorry for it, I apologize for it."

"I have this dark cloud that follows me," Dre continues, "and it's going to be attached to me forever. It's a major blemish on who I am as a man."

Barnes hasn't spoken out specifically about Dre's apology since the airing of this part of The Defiant Ones, but she has been posting about it on Instagram, posting a photo of herself with Dre and The D.O.C. with the caption "Six Degrees of Separation."

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