Patti LaBelle Terrorized, Threw Water at My Baby, Mom Says

Say it ain't so! Patti LaBelle is disciplining babies now? A woman from New York City has slapped the legendary diva with a civil lawsuit seeking unspecified damages after the singer hurled expletives and half a bottle of water at a woman and her 18-month-old daughter after a squabble over parenting in an apartment building lobby last November. (Ms. Patti was also temporarily living in the building while she appeared in "Fela" on Broadway.) According to the suit, mom Roseanna Monk said Ms. Patti berated her for allowing the toddler to take some steps away from her as she grappled with some luggage and a car seat in the building's lobby on the afternoon of Nov. 11, 2010. Roseanna says after she picked up her daughter and told Ms. Patti to mind her own business, the singer threw a half a bottle of water on them then launched into an obscenity-filled tirade. Then it got worse! Roseanna says her daughter became upset and started to cry, so she made another remark to Ms. Patti (read: cursed her back out) and that's when the singer charged at her and tried to hit her. Roseanna and her husband reported the incident to police, but did not file charges. The couple said they tried to settle this by asking Ms. Patti to apologize for actions and make a donation to a children's cancer charity but, according to them, Ms. Patti wasn't having it. The Monks feel "someone's got to teach her even a diva can't attack and frighten and assault regular people in the building," their lawyer said. While the Monk's claims are astounding, given Ms. Patti's history, this could've definitely happened. Last March, the singer was accusing of sicing her bodyguards on a 23-year-old West Point cadet because he was standing too close to her luggage. He suffered severed injuries and sued Ms. Patti. Her bodyguards and hairdresser were charged with assault. Sidebar: We can almost guarantee there's some surveillance video of this argument in the apartment lobby. This did happen in NYC, after all. Pull the tape, Roseanna, and post it on YouTube!

UPDATE, Nov. 15: Roseanna, who was pregnant at the time of the attack, gave more details to to the NY Post. The mom says the family was leaving for a trip when she put her daughter, Genevieve, down for a moment by the door. “Someone came up behind me and said, ‘Do you know what your daughter is doing?’ I said ‘yes’ and went to pick her up.” [Ms Patti] said in an aggressive tone, ‘You shouldn’t have left your daughter by the door.' I told her, ‘I have no interest in what you say or think.' She became enraged and started using profanities -- the C-word and the F-word in a loud voice ... She had a bottle of water and started flicking water from the bottle on me." She said her daughter, Genevieve, got hysterical. “I said to this woman, ‘Look what you’ve done to my daughter.’” Roseanna said Ms Patti charged at her and the singer and was restrained by her entourage and pulled out to a waiting car. Roseanna says Genevieve was so traumatized, she threw up and has suffered “personality changes, sleep disorder” and “increased fear of strangers.”





source: AP| NY Post