Dave Rowntree, the former Blur drummer who recently qualified as a solicitor at Kingsley Napley, has re-issued an apology for bullying a journalist while under the influence of cocaine during his rockstar days.
The newly qualified criminal law specialist was moved to repeat a 2011 apology for the incident — which occurred back in 2003 — after disgruntled fans of the targeted journalist, who has gone on to become a major star in his native Canada, kept reminding Rowntree about it on Twitter.
The YouTube clip of the bullying (see above) was brought to Rowntree’s attention yet again last week, prompting this response on Tuesday…
.@akirathedon It was indefensible – I talk about it here http://t.co/1b9B5JVywq – sorry again @nardwuar
— David Rowntree (@DaveRowntree) October 8, 2013
The link in Rowntree’s tweet is to a blog post from two years ago containing the former Blur man’s previous public apology to the journalist, who goes by the unconventional name of Nardwuar the Human Serviette.
In it, Rowntree says he is “ashamed” of the incident, which saw him manhandle Nardwuar, before pulling his notes out of his hand and then removing the journalist’s hat and glasses and throwing them to the floor.
Rowntree continues: “There’s no excuse for my bullying, and the reason I did it is perhaps nearly as sordid. As I’ve written in the past I became addicted to cocaine during the nineties. Now I’ve no idea if it has this effect on anyone else, but for me, the day after a cocaine binge I’d sometimes fly into a murderous rage, and take it out on whoever happened to be around. In this case, it happened to be the journalist”
The former Blur man adds that he keeps a clip of the interview on his phone to remind himself why he left his old life to become a lawyer.