Caught in the crossfire
In a case of mistaken identity, Ali Campbell has been dragged into Kavanaugh’s saga
After being pulled into the scrum surrounding Brett Kavanaugh, Ali Campbell of reggae band UB40 has distanced himself from the US Supreme Court nominee.
Campbell was dragged into the ongoing saga surrounding Kavanaugh’s confirmation this week. One of the judge’s former Yale classmates shared his account of a 1985 altercation between a young Kavanaugh and a man Kavanaugh thought might be Campbell, then the lead singer of UB40 before leaving the group in 2008. It was then that a fellow patron at the bar accused Kavanaugh of throwing ice at him. “It wasn’t me! But I do know that nobody bumped me on the head with a block of ice in a bar, I would remember that, wouldn’t I?” the singer said in a statement, elaborating on what had been reported about the altercation.
“I don’t remember the gig in question [in Connecticut], but we did more than 1,000 shows in the US in the ‘80s. They blur into one another, but the last thing I would do is go to the bar over the road after a show — I jump straight into a car and go back to the hotel,” Campbell said.
His brother, Robin Campbell, also issued a statement on behalf of the English reggae band, summing up the bar fight as a case of mistaken identity. “Obviously, there must have been an assault because the police were called and a report was filed, but this is a case of mistaken identity and has nothing to do with UB40,” a spokesperson told Billboard.