Last year, Banks became involved in 2018’s most bizarre celebrity feud, after a recording session with electronic artist Grimes at her then-boyfriend Elon Musk’s house devolved into chaos. “She is a dickhead though.” Banks is after all, superbly talented, from her blistering debut mixtape Fantasea to the sensual 2018 single Treasure Island: a fact that is often forgotten amidst gleeful media coverage of her public spats. “I can’t wait to see her, I love her music so much,” one fan told the Irish Times after Banks, belatedly, made it to Ireland for her gig. In spite of all of her bigoted and bullying behaviour, some people continue to root for her. A year later, she called Zayn Malik a “curry-scented bitch”, and asked for Sarah Palin to be gangbanged.Īzealia Banks on stage this week at the Academy, Dublin. In 2015, she was removed from a Delta flight after calling an attendant a “fucking faggot”. Prosecutors dropped the case after other partygoers told police that they had witnessed Banks threaten to attack a woman with broken glass. In 2016, she claimed that the actor Russell Crowe assaulted her during a party in a Beverly Hills hotel room. In 2017, she accepted a plea deal after an incident in which she bit a New York City bouncer on the breast and spat on her. Since breaking out in 2011 with 212, her fast-flowing celebration of cunnilingus, Banks’ gift for controversy would challenge even the most battle-hardened PR professional. Is there a tougher gig than being Banks’s publicist? You wonder if they get strapped into the same spinning chair they use to stress-test astronauts. When the incident sparked a semi-serious tabloid row about the beauty or lack thereof of Irish women, Banks apologised to her Irish fans, calling herself the “Queen of Ireland” and asking that they throw baked potatoes at her if they were offended by her comments. A fellow passenger told Mail Online they felt the crew were heavy-handed.Īfter disembarking the flight voluntarily, Banks called the Aer Lingus staff “ugly Irish women”, threatening to throw geese into the engine of her career. As she looked for her passport, the situation escalated. L ast week, in the most high-profile celebrity aviation incident since Kate Moss popularised the term “basic bitch” in a row with easyJet staff about sandwiches, the American rapper Azealia Banks removed herself from an Aer Lingus flight after calling a flight attendant an “ugly Irish bitch”.Īccording to a tearful video she posted on Instagram, Banks said a flight attendant asked her questions she couldn’t answer without checking her passport, which she had stored in the overhead locker.