Rapper Busted on 'Shocking' Charges

Rick Ross was arrested Thursday morning in Miami Beach on one felony count of battery by strangulation and one misdemeanor count of battery, both connected to a domestic violence case.

The rapper, whose legal name is William Leonard Roberts II, turned himself in at Miami Beach Police headquarters and was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center at 6:10 a.m., according to the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department. He gave police no statement about the incident.

Bond was set at $5,000. Ross was out of jail by later that same morning. His arraignment is scheduled for October 22.

Steve Sadow, an attorney for Ross, said in a statement that the rapper “is being wrongfully accused by an ex-girlfriend whose true motivations are unclear.” The statement said Roberts is innocent and has pled not guilty to the charges.

What the police report says happened on August 28

The arrest report from the Miami Beach Police Department identifies the woman only by her initials. She told police she and Ross had been in a relationship for about a year and were living together at the time.

According to the report, she was woken up on the morning of August 28 by Ross, who was angry that she had been tagged in a photo on Instagram. He questioned her, accused her of lying and slapped her in the face. He then accused her of being involved with a man she said was just a friend.

Police said Ross followed her around the home as he kept questioning her, hitting her each time she denied the accusation. The report says he struck her several times in the chest, then grabbed the collar of her hoodie and twisted it until she could not breathe.

He grabbed her by the ponytail and slammed her into a wall, the report says, then hit her in the face while she was bent over, leaving her with a split lip. The report describes Ross pushing her onto a bathroom floor and grabbing the shower head to spray her with water before she got out of the room and left the house.

She later returned, waited for Ross to leave, gathered her belongings and went again, police said. She called a friend to come pick her up. Surveillance video shows the friend was turned away from the property.

The judge said she didn't know who he was

Ross appeared in bond court Thursday morning before Judge Mindy Glazer. His attorney, Bradley Horenstein, asked the court to speed up his release because his client is a celebrity.

Glazer responded that she did not know who the rapper was, and that he would be treated fairly, like everyone else in her courtroom. She set the bond and ordered Ross to stay away from the woman.

The stay-away order covers more than showing up in person. It also bars Ross from contacting the woman through third parties or social media.

His lawyers say the allegations are false

Horenstein pushed back hard on the charges the same day. “All I can say is that the allegations are false. He’s innocent. Everything is going to come out,” he told CBS News Miami. “We just ask that you allow the process to play out before rushing to judgment, because the truth will come in.”

Sadow’s written statement leaned on the gap between the date in the report and the date of the complaint. “The ex did not even file a police report until a month after the claimed incident allegedly took place. Mr. Roberts is innocent and has pled not guilty to the charges,” it read.

The statement closed by asking the public to hold off. Ross “respectfully requests that his friends, fans and the general public not prejudge the situation and allow the judicial process to run its course,” it said.

The Instagram posts that started it

Kendrick, 39, a model and content creator, went public on September 26, days before any arrest. She posted a photo to her Instagram stories showing an injured lip and wrote: “I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know that a man that puts his hands on me, is a man that never loved me and never will.”

Another image carried a blunter caption: “The day Rick busted my lip and the day I left.”

The posts started with a compliment. A fan messaged her to say she looked gorgeous. Kendrick screenshotted the message and answered it by describing Ross as seeing her as a “punching bag.”

She also wrote directly to other women reading along: “If a man hits you one time, he will do it again. Don’t give him the opportunity. Value your life and leave.”

Kendrick and Ross split in 2025 and later reconciled, appearing together at the BET Awards in June.

Five days from Kendrick’s posts to the arrest

Court records put the alleged assault on the morning of August 28. Kendrick posted about her injured lip on Saturday, September 26. The woman in the police report went to the Miami Beach Police Department on Tuesday, September 29. Ross surrendered on Thursday, October 1.

The woman gave police timestamped photos of her injuries, according to the arrest affidavit. Police have not said whether she is Kendrick, but the injuries Kendrick described publicly, including the busted lip, match the ones in the report, Rolling Stone reported.

50 Cent jumped in before the arrest

Ross has traded insults with 50 Cent for the better part of two decades, and 50 Cent did not sit this one out. He posted about Kendrick’s allegations on his own Instagram in late September, suggesting Ross was stressed because his album had not sold.

He ended the post on a different note, writing that domestic violence is not a joke.

He has been through a felony case before

In 2015, Ross was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault and aggravated battery over the alleged pistol-whipping of a groundskeeper at his Atlanta estate.

He pleaded no contest in 2017 to one felony count of aggravated assault and was sentenced to five years of probation and a $10,000 fine.

That estate is the one he calls “The Promise Land,” a property that has shown up in his music videos, his social media and his car shows for years.

Star Island, Carol City and a weekend in Dubai

Ross was born in Mississippi and grew up in Carol City in Miami-Dade County. He owns a mansion on Star Island in Miami Beach, the address police say the August 28 incident took place at, plus the Atlanta estate.

After posting bond, he stopped and talked to reporters outside the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. He told them he was planning to fly to Dubai on Friday and Paris on Saturday.

At 50, Ross is one of the most recognizable figures in Miami hip-hop. He broke through with “Hustlin’,” later landed “Aston Martin Music,” and founded the Maybach Music Group label, which signed Meek Mill and Wale.

October 22 is the next date on the calendar

Ross is due back in court on October 22 for arraignment in the Miami case. His attorney has already entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, which means the felony strangulation count and the misdemeanor battery count are both headed into the standard pretrial process.

Until then, the stay-away order stands, and it includes contact through social media. Nothing has been proven in court. Ross has not been convicted of anything in this case, and the only account of the morning of August 28 on the record is the one the woman gave to Miami Beach police on September 29.

His legal team’s position is simple enough: the allegations are false, the delay in reporting matters, and everyone should wait. Prosecutors will get their chance to answer that in a Miami-Dade courtroom in a few weeks.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233 or at www.thehotline.org.