NICE, France—During a week of five-star partying in Paris, Chris Brown appeared clueless about an unfolding police investigation that was about to see him arrested over a rape allegation.
On Saturday night he brazenly hosted a glitzy fete at a chic club. Now the 29-year-old Grammy Award-winning singer is sitting in a jail in the 17th arrondissement where police can hold him for 24 hours or more before deciding to formally charge or release him.
Léo Reynes, the owner of the French nightclub Monsieur Cirque told the Daily Beast that Brown had been oblivious during the event on Saturday night which was splashed all over the bar’s Facebook page.
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“Everything was cool, Chris was cool, we all had a great time,” he said. “It was like he didn’t have a care in the world. I am almost certain neither he nor his people knew that anything was coming down.”
But it was. On Monday morning, Paris police took the chronically controversial star into custody in connection with allegations of aggravated rape and drug infractions following another club party in Paris on January 15.
Police confirmed Brown’s detention on the sexual assault and drug charges to the Daily Beast and said two other men were taken into custody but did not identify them nor give other details. The news was first reported by the French glossy tabloid Closer.
Closer said that a 24-year-old woman filed a police complaint, alleging that Brown, a friend and his bodyguard all raped her in Brown’s suite at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
The magazine said that after meeting Brown at Le Crystal club near the Champs-Élysées, the woman and several girlfriends accompanied Brown and his group back to his hotel.
The woman said she somehow wound up alone in one of the hotel rooms where she said Brown raped her. She also accused his friend and his bodyguard of raping her.
Neither executives at Sony, Brown’s record label, or his LA-based attorney Mark Geragos immediately responded to calls for comment. A spokeswoman for the Mandarin Hotel said it would have no comment.
Brown is best known for pleading guilty to the felony beat-down of his then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. He got off on probation in that case, but he’s been in trouble with the police as often as he’s had hit records since then.
Last year, he was arrested at a concert on charges of assaulting a nightclub photographer. He was charged with misdemeanor assault in 2013 after being accused of hitting a man outside a Washington, D.C. hotel. He spent a little over two months in custody. During that time he also threw a rock through his mother’s car window in a fit of anger.
Brown’s history of violence has overshadowed his musical output, which includes six platinum-selling albums. He won a Grammy in 2011 for best R&B album for “F.A.M.E.”
