CONTENT WARNING: The following article discusses domestic abuse and assault.
A secret recording of XXXTentacion (real name Jahseh Onfroy) confessing to domestic abuse and stabbings has been released, after the 20-year-old Florida rapper was shot and killed in June.
Pitchfork has obtained the secretly recorded tape from the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office, and it features the rapper speaking with acquaintances around the time of his arrest on domestic abuse charges in October 2016.
At the time, XXXTentacion was awaiting trial for a 2016 domestic abuse case involving a former girlfriend. He was charged with aggravated battery of a pregnant victim, domestic battery by strangulation, false imprisonment and witness tampering.
He had pleaded not guilty to the charges, and maintained his innocence up until his death.
Now, in the secret recording (which you can hear a snippet of below), the musician can be heard speaking about his ex-girlfriend, who he believed had cheated on him.
“I put my source of happiness in another person, which was a mistake initially, right? But she fell through on every occasion until now,” he says.
“Until I started fucking her up bruh. I started fucking her up because she made one mistake. And from there, the whole cycle went down. Now she’s scared. That girl is scared for her life. Which I understand.”
The rapper doesn’t detail what he had done to the alleged victim, but threatens, “I will kill that bitch if she play with me.”
XXXTentacion also refers to a stabbing incident in Florida, saying, “I’m on [Miami] New Times for stabbing, how many people they put in the news? They said three, it was eight.”
Elsewhere in the tape, he also admits to stabbing a former manager — an incident he was arrested for in July 2016.
Both the prosecution and defence team involved in XXXTentacion’s trial reportedly considered the tape a confession, however criminal cases against XXXTentacion were closed after his death.
Since his passing, XXXTentacion’s music has climbed the charts, creating controversy in the process.
A number of suspects have been indicted over his murder, and a collaborative track with the late Lil Peep has also been released, much to the dismay of Peep’s camp.
