Kardashian connection may help jailed rapper
It looks like it could definitely help to have friends in high places when one has been jailed in a foreign country — especially if one’s friends have an in with the White House and with Donald Trump’s family.
A$AP Rocky has been in a Swedish jail for more than two weeks under investigation for assault. He has not been charged, while reports have emerged that he has endured treatment by authorities that is “shockingly inhumane” and racist, TMZ has reported. Fortunately for him, it appears that the U.S. State Department is “actively” working to get the rapper out of jail, and has dispatched a State Department official to Stockholm to deal with the situation.
The State Department’s effort may have come courtesy of Kim Kardashian, TMZ reported Thursday. At the behest of her husband, Kanye West, the reality TV star and aspiring attorney called up Jared Kushner, her White House contact on criminal justice reform initiatives. Kushner, a White House senior adviser, in turn took Kardashian’s concerns directly to his father-in-law.
According to TMZ, President Trump told Kushner he believed A$AP Rocky was being held unfairly, and wanted to help. That’s when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got involved and dispatched a few deputies in an attempt to get some action.
A State Deptartment member was supposed to arrive in Sweden Thursday, with the aim of getting A$AP Rocky out of jail, TMZ added. An official from the U.S. Embassy in Sweden visited A$AP Rocky about a week after his arrest and said being in his jail cell was like “walking into a toilet,” TMZ reported.
According to video obtained by TMZ, A$ AP Rocky’s arrest came after he and his entourage were being harassed by two men in Stockholm on June 30. The man wouldn’t heed a request from A$AP Rocky’s bodyguard to leave them alone. After the man took a swing at the bodyguard, A$AP Rocky tried to play peacemaker, telling the man, “Listen, listen. We don’t wanna fight y’all. We don’t wanna go to jail.”
But A$AP Rocky’s patience apparently wore out when a woman came up to the group and said one of the men groped her, according to TMZ. That’s when A$AP Rocky and his crew decided “to throw down” and a fight ensued that ended with one of the men — not part of A$AP Rocky’s crew — knocked to the ground. He was sent to a hospital with unspecified injuries, TMZ added.