Travis Scott has taken yet another hit in the fallout of his Astroworld Festival last month, which turned into a mass casualty event when 10 people were killed and hundreds more injured due to the crowd surge.
Dior announced that the luxury brand would be indefinitely postponing its Cactus Jack collaboration with the Houston rapper. The line would have been Dior’s first partnership with a musician, between Scott and men’s artistic director Kim Jones. Dior called off the upcoming line in a statement to Women’s Wear Daily on Tuesday.
“Out of respect for everyone affected by the tragic events at Astroworld, Dior has decided to postpone indefinitely the launch of products from the Cactus Jack collaboration originally intended to be included in its summer 2022 collection,” the company said in a statement issued exclusively to WWD. Scott’s team told WWD on Tuesday that he and Dior mutually decided to postpone the collection’s January launch.
The cause of death for all 10 people who died at Astroworld — eight the night of the concert and two more in the hospital in the days that followed — was ruled to be accidental compressive asphyxiation. A total of 25 people were hospitalized, with more than 300 treated for injuries at the festival’s onsite hospital.
This is the second branding deal Scott has lost in the aftermath of the tragedy. Earlier this month, Anheuser-Busch announced that it was discontinuing the rapper’s Cacti line of hard seltzers. The partnership had launched in March 2021 until Nov. 30, when both sides allegedly made a “mutual” decision to end the line.
“Travis was clear in his interview that he is not focused on business right now and his priority is helping his community and fans heal,” an Anheuser-Busch representative said in a statement, in reference to comments Scott had made in an interview with Charlamagne Tha God.
Scott had previously told Charlamagne Tha God that he hadn’t been aware of the casualties until after the concert, which continued for 40 minutes after the crowd surge.
“As artists, we trust professionals that if things happen that people can leave safely,” Scott said at the time, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “And this night was just like a regular show, it felt like to me, as far as the energy. It didn’t feel like, you know …people didn’t show up there just to be harmful. People showed up to just have a good time, and something unfortunate happened, and I think we really just gotta figure out what that was.”
