Justin Bieber has been accused of assaulting a man during a club brawl in the Hamptons last weekend.
The 19-year-old singer arrived at the South Pointe club in Southampton, New York, with around 10-14 people including his security detail at around 2:42 am on Sunday, August 4.
Wayne Rennalls, a 22-year-old model and actor, claims he was attacked by the singer, his friends and bodyguards, in the club’s parking lot when he went to retrieve a bow tie he had earlier given to a cocktail waitress who left with Bieber’s party.
However, one of the waitresses says the accusations against the singer don’t reflect what actually happened during the brawl.
“Everyone is trying to portray Justin in a negative light and he had nothing to do with it,” says South Pointe cocktail server Sophia Rayo, 32 .
“Everyone was involved, we almost got out [of the car],” she added. “It was just some silly thing about a bow tie. It was a dumb thing. Guys just have testosterone.”
The New York Daily News reports Rayo and waitress co-worker Diana Bhokasub, 24, were “handpicked” by the pop star as party pals on the night.
Rayo never once mentions Justin ripping his shirt, screaming, or going “nuts” in the club as was initially reported .
Her experience of Bieber as well behaved corroborates the reports of multiple outlets and witnesses who said the star stuck to water and was calm while inside the club.
The waitress told Celebuzz no intimacies took place between her and Bieber after they left the club.
“We were with three caravans of people and it was unisex — boys and girls,” Rayo recalls . “To say that there was a love triangle between me, my friend and Justin is not true. The story is getting out of hand.”
In a separate, brief statement issued through her attorneys, she said: “Justin and his staff were perfect gentlemen for the hour or so we all spent as his guests.”
She added , “There is nothing more to it and I am sure the many other guests there would say the same.”
Speaking specifically about the video footage of the parking lot brawl obtained by E! News, Rayo says there was a lot of provocation of Bieber and his crew that isn’t seen in the clip.
The video doesn’t show any on-camera footage of the alleged assault against Rennalls. Nor is there any of him throwing a rock at Bieber’s SUV as previously alleged by a source to the New York Post .
But the footage does show Bieber’s security team facing down a shirtless, aggressively gesturing Rennalls. It also show the bodyguards putting their hands on another man who is seen falling.
“I personally think the guy was starting with Justin and was aggressive because he wanted to get him involved because it’s Justin Bieber and he’s a celebrity,” Rayo observed.
“I think that people start with people sometimes because they want to get hit and look like the big guy in the crew,” she added .
At one point in the video, Bieber is seen clambering atop the roof of his SUV and jumping to the ground. He is also seen being pushed back from the fray by one of his mates. Of this, Rayo notes :
“The one thing you don’t see in the video is that his friends were calling Justin names, anything that would get a normal person worked up. And one thing led to another and his friends got knocked to the floor.”
The waitress says she didn’t see the “Beauty and a Beat” star tell his bodyguards anything about the alleged victim.
In a Friday press conference to announce his filing of a personal injury suit against Bieber — he filed a police report alleging assault against the singer’s security team — Rennalls sported a black eye, reportedly adding he has sustained facial cuts and could lose a tooth from the alleged attack.
In addition to previous soundbites revealing startlingly infantile machismo, Rennalls told the press that tensions between him and Bieber’s camp began with “jealousy in the club” because:
“I got a group of females, like seven on this [left] side and three on this side [right], and one standing behind me. The girls I was with, none of them ran to him [Bieber],” he said .
He later claimed Justin shouted “You f_ing p_y, do something” through his SUV sunroof as his car pulled away in the parking lot. Following this, he says the singer’s security emerged from the SUV and “bum-rushed” him for about four to five minutes and that during this, “He [Bieber] got around and kicked me.”
Rennalls omitted his alleged rock throwing in his account and in the police report it says an object was “thrown from a vehicle” [Italics added]. To read that report click here .
There is no footage of the crucial moments but as there are documented, physical injuries , the balance may come down to determining how much of a threat Bieber’s bodyguards thought Rennalls and his friends posed.