In a string of posts shared on Instagram this week, Azealia Banks alleged Dave Holmes, the current manager of Coldplay (who in the past Banks claimed was a manager for Santigold, Interpol and My Chemical Romance) was physically abusive towards her when they were in a relationship.
In her extensive and detailed account, she described the evolution of their involvement together. Banks explains that after she was dropped by her label, XL, the couple briefly broke up before getting back together when her breakthrough single “212” began receiving traction in 2011.
Banks describes a particularly jarring incident that occurred the night before she shot her “1991” music video:
On the night before the 1991 video, the couple get into a heated argument about $2,000 she’d borrowed from him two weeks earlier. She grabs hold of his fancy espresso machine and pushes it on the floor, which prompts him to put her in a choking headlock. The fight gets nasty, with her throwing rocks through glass windows and him dragging her by her hair and throwing her into a freezing cold shower. During the headlock she cuts the inside of her lip on her teeth and begins to spit blood. Her friend comes to pick her up and take her home where she cries for hours and doesn’t sleep a wink.
It’s not the first time she’s made similar allegations. In December of 2012, she initially described — in tweets that have now been deleted — details of Holmes violence against her: “One tweet read: “ColdPlay’s manager Dave Holmes is a piece of s-–. Second time he has put his f—– hands on me.” Another tweet detailed: “You know how someone lets you down once…And you give them another chance, and they let you down again? And you feel stupid…Because you knew better? A Jealous Man is a Dangerous man.”