VANITY FAIR
Musician 2Chainz (birth name Tauheed K. Epps) might be known for his operatic contribution to the Fast and Furious franchise, but it doesn’t appear that his driving was behind a Saturday morning crash that sent him to a Miami hospital. Instead, TMZ reports, the driver of a Tesla struck Epps shortly after he left a well-known local strip club.
In an Instagram story published in Saturday’s pre-dawn hours, Epps shares a video that appears to be taken while on a paramedic’s stretcher. (HipHopDX has also uploaded the video to X, formerly Twitter, if you’re reading this after the 24-hour Instagram story expiration period.) As the 46-year-old was loaded into the back of an ambulance, with emergency lights flashing throughout the scene, Epps panned from his rescuer to a badly damaged black Tesla. The vehicle’s front left side was completely crumbled, and right-angled into the guardrail. No other cars were visible in the brief video clip.
That crunched EV was not the one Epps was piloting during the collision, it appears. Instead, he was “driving on I-95 and about to exit,” when the driver of the Tesla struck Epps’s car. Details on that driver, including their condition following the collision, are unknown, but “cops suspect the other driver may have been driving under the influence,” TMZ reports. Vanity Fair has reached out to Miami police and to Epps’s representatives for comment, but has not received a response as of publication time.
The Georgia-based rapper is in Florida for Art Basel Miami Beach 2023, an art fair/marketing whirlwind/massive VIP event. Just prior to the collision, he’d reportedly left a location of the Booby Trap, a Miami-area strip club mini-chain that boasts “a great free lunch” and “a United Nations of the most beautiful woman [sic] in the world gracing the poles.” (It’s unclear if the Booby Trap is home to any official Art Basel events, but that likelihood seems slim.)
According to TMZ, the Tesla driver struck Epps’s vehicle from the rear, leaving the musician with injuries to his neck “and possibly other injuries as well.” Epps is reportedly in stable condition at a Miami hospital, and is expected to recover.
