HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Kanye West says the time has come to protect stars like him.
The hip-hop star is speaking out after being arrested at his England hotel Friday morning after an alleged incident with a paparazzi outside a U.K. nightclub a few hours earlier. West was detained on suspicion of assault, but later released without being charged. The singer says he did nothing wrong in the incident.
"When I left the club, I was encountered by a thirsty paparazzi as usual," West blogged on his official Web site. "He felt he had more rights to my space than me, so I put my hand up to prevent him from taking my image. I didn't assault him."
"My security yelled, 'Get the camera off him.' I guess in all the commotion, the camera scraped his nose," he said.
West said he returned to his hotel room after the incident, only to get a knock at his door a few hours later.
"The cops were very cordial but told me they had to arrest me because a complaint was filed," he wrote. "That was the bogus part. They placed me in handcuffs and drove me to the station. They spoke about how this was obviously a publicity stunt by the photographer but they still had to go through the motions."
In his blog, West mentioned the death of Princess Diana, who died in a car crash while being chased by the paparazzi in 1997.
"Let us not forget the paps killed Princess Diana," he said.
West, who was also arrested after a similar run-in with the paparazzi at Los Angeles International Airport in September, says the time has come to start protecting celebrities from overly aggressive photographers.
"When will there be a law passed that simply enforces that someone has to ask to have a photograph of you?" he wonders. "That would seem like common courtesy. Right now the paps are above the law and the people they shoot are below it."
"The personal problem I have with the paps is when they try to catch you being a regular person," he adds. "I am not a celebrity. I'm a normal person that's just famous."
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