LONDON (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown was released on 5 million-pound ($6.7 million) bail Wednesday while facing allegations he beat and seriously injured a music producer with a bottle in a London nightclub in 2023.
The decision by a London judge to grant bail will allow Brown to launch a world tour next month that had been thrown into doubt last week when a district judge in Manchester ordered him into custody after he was charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Judge Tony Baumgartner in Southwark Crown Court said that Brown could go on tour, including several stops in the U.K., but would have to pay the bail to guarantee his court appearance.
Brown, who was not in court for the hearing, was released in the late afternoon from a jail in Salford, outside Manchester, where he had been arrested at a hotel last week.
Brown was initially scheduled to return to court on June 13. Had he remained in custody, he would have missed the first two nights of his upcoming European tour, which starts next month.
Brown, 36, is accused of an unprovoked attack on producer Abe Diaw at a bar in the Tape nightclub in the swanky Mayfair neighborhood in February 2023 while he was on his last tour.
Prosecutor Hannah Nicholls said last week in Manchester Magistrates’ Court that Brown struck Diaw several times with a bottle and then punched and kicked him in an attack caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people.
American musician Omololu Akinlolu, 38, who performs under the name “Hoody Baby” and is a friend of Brown, was also charged in the assault.
Neither Brown nor Akinlolu have entered a plea yet. Both men were ordered to appear in court again on June 20.
Brown, who burst onto the music scene as a teen in 2005, won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E.” and then earned his second in the same category for “11:11 (Deluxe)” earlier this year.
His hits include songs such as “Run It,” “Kiss Kiss” and “Without You.”
His tour is due to kick off June 8 in Amsterdam before starting North America shows in July.
A vehicle believed to be carrying R&B singer Chris Brown leaves HMP Forest Bank in Salford, England, after he was freed on bail, Wednesday May 21, 2025. (James Speakman/PA via AP)
FILE - In this June 7, 2015 file photo, Chris Brown performs at the 2015 Hot 97 Summer Jam at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File)
Football at its very best.
That was Arne Slot's memory of Liverpool’s richly entertaining meeting with Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last season.
OK, Liverpool ultimately went out, beaten at Anfield in a round-of-16 penalty shootout by the team that would go on to win the competition for the first time, but Slot loved the way his side played and still maintains it was “the best game I’ve managed in my career.”
They meet again almost 12 months on, with Liverpool — and Slot — in a very different place.
Indeed, the Dutch coach appears to be fighting for his job heading into the upcoming quarterfinal doubleheader with the European champions that starts with the first leg in Paris on Wednesday.
A 4-0 loss at Manchester City in the FA Cup on Saturday was Liverpool's latest poor result of a season that initially began with so much hope after the club's record summer splurge of $570 million on new players on the back of cruising to the Premier League title.
With the Reds having long given up hope of retaining their league title, the Champions League is their only remaining chance of a trophy.
On current form, that looks unlikely.
While Liverpool has lost four of its last seven games in all competitions in a run of results that has piled the pressure on Slot, PSG is on a four-match winning run that contains back-to-back victories over Chelsea in the Champions League's round of 16 (5-2 and 3-0).
Only one team has retained the Champions League since the turn of the century — Real Madrid won it for three straight years from 2016 — but PSG looks in good shape to do so.
Slot and Liverpool might just be happy to get out of the Parc des Princes with a fighting chance of advancing going into the second leg at Anfield.
There are three other quarterfinal matchups: Real Madrid vs. Bayern Munich, Barcelona vs. Atletico Madrid, and Sporting Lisbon vs. Arsenal.
It's one of the more unlikely Champions League facts: Madrid and Munich — winners of the title a combined 21 times — still haven't met in the final.
They won't this season, either.
The two European heavyweights are, however, meeting in the knockout stage for the sixth time in the past 14 seasons — and it has been a one-sided rivalry.
Madrid, the record 15-time champion, has won four of five two-legged matchups with Bayern since the 2011-12 season: once in the quarterfinals and three times in the semifinals, most recently in 2024. Bayern won in the semifinals in 2012 after a penalty shootout.
Bayern might never have a better chance to end that miserable run, given the German champions are unbeaten in 13 games in all competitions. Star striker Harry Kane is expected to be available, despite missing Saturday's win over Freiburg in the Bundesliga with a minor ankle issue sustained in national team training last week.
Madrid is coming off a comfortable round-of-16 win over Man City but, more recently, a 2-1 loss at Mallorca on Saturday that hurt its Spanish league title hopes.
The players of Spanish rivals Barcelona and Atletico might be sick of the sight of each other by next week's second leg.
That's because their upcoming Champions League doubleheader will complete a barrage of five meetings between the teams in the space of two months, culminating in three matches in 10 days.
On Saturday, Barcelona came from behind to beat Atletico 2-1 on the road to strengthen its hold on the Spanish league lead. In February, they met in the Copa Del Rey with each winning big at home and Atletico advancing on aggregate.
They have met twice in the Champions League knockout stages and both times at the quarterfinal stage, with Atletico going through in 2014 and 2016 on its run to the final each season. Atletico played the second leg at home on those occasions, too.
The first leg of their current head-to-head is on Wednesday.
Fresh from guiding Sweden into the World Cup, Arsenal striker Viktor Gyökeres makes a first return to the club that turned him into a globally renowned striker.
At Sporting, Gyökeres scored 97 goals in 102 games, including 54 last season when he outscored the likes of Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah. Quite the rise, then, for someone who previously had barely played a top-tier league game.
Since joining Arsenal for $85 million, goals haven’t been so easy to come by — he has 16 in 42 matches in all competitions — but remains first choice under coach Mikel Arteta, who values his line-leading qualities.
And, after his recent heroics for Sweden when he grabbed a hat trick against Ukraine and then the crucial late goal against Poland in the winner-takes-all playoff, Gyökeres should be full of confidence on his return to Lisbon for Tuesday's match.
Sporting will look to make home advantage count like it did in the round of 16, completing a turnaround against Bodø/Glimt by winning the second leg 5-0 for one of the great Champions League fightbacks.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Sweden's Viktor Gyokeres applauds to supporters at the end of the World Cup playoff semifinal soccer match between Ukraine and Sweden in Valencia, Spain, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)
France forward Kylian Mbappé (10) sits on a ball during the warm-up before the international friendly soccer match between Colombia and France in Landover, Md., Sunday, March 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
