.Say It Ain’t So, Snoop

A gangsta rapper in hot water? Man, what's the world coming to?

As the sordid details of the Snoop Dogg sexual assault/extortion case emerge (legal filings recently appeared on TheSmokingGun.com), it appears that the rapper’s scandalous behavior could ground his Soul Plane, crash his Snoop deVille, and foul up the reception on his T-Mobile Sidekick text messager.

Here’s the skinny: On January 28, an Emmy-award-winning makeup artist named Kylie Bell filed a $25 million lawsuit against Snoop Dogg, ABC, the Walt Disney Company, and Snoop’s bodyguards, alleging that she had been drugged and raped by the rapper and his posse backstage at The Jimmy Kimmel Show two years earlier. Bell alleges she was approached by Snoop’s bodyguards while out walking her dogs, and later was asked to be tha Doggfather’s personal stylist for his guest-hosting appearance on the talk show. During the four days she was on the set, she says she saw Snoop and his posse smoking several marijuana-laced blunts in front of employees of either Disney or ABC. She also alleges that she personally witnessed the guest host snorting cocaine in his dressing room. Following the taping of the last show, she claims, “a number of people entered [Snoop’s] dressing room and a party began. At the party, there were large quantities of marijuana and champagne being consumed.”

Bell then says she was handed a glass of champagne by Snoop’s security, began to feel dizzy, and was assaulted sexually by the guards and Snoop. Then, before being driven home, she claims she was beaten and assaulted again, by Snoop’s chief of security — although she also admits she called this same man several times the next day because she did not remember what happened. When she mentioned she thought she had been drugged, the bodyguard told her he would “look into” the incident and would “take care of it.”

According to court documents, Bell claimed Snoop’s known affiliation with gang members prevented her from pursuing a criminal claim for fear of reprisal. However, not long after she mentioned the possibility of filing a police report to Kimmel Show staff members, she began to receive payments from them for “expenses.” After the woman was hospitalized for mental-health issues “of a serious and permanent nature,” Snoop’s lawyers began paying for her “expenses” as well. Demands for more money were made, and an attempt at mediation failed. Meanwhile, Snoop filed a countersuit alleging extortion. A settlement seemed nigh, but when Snoop’s insurance refused to pony up an undisclosed sum, Bell went forth with her lawsuit.

Whether you believe her, one thing is clear: Pimp juice, apparently, runneth over from Snoop’s cup, and none other than good old American greed is partly to blame for the spill. Corporate America probably should have known better when it plucked a gangbanging Crip off the streets and made him a full-fledged pop culture icon. Most egregiously, the suits co-signed on the pimp image Snoop was so fascinated by, and turned it into a mainstream trend — as proof, look no further than the Verizon commercial offering suburban teens a “pimped-out” camera phone. Or the MTV show Pimp My Ride. Or Demi Moore pimping Ashton Kutcher for PR. Or Paris Hilton pimping herself. Or the Hughes Brothers’ American Pimp. Or Bishop Magic Don Juan, Snoop’s “spiritual adviser,” a self-reputed supreme mack who first came to white America’s attention on the HBO special Pimps Up, Hoes Down. Or Huggy Bear, the police informant with an, um, interesting fashion sense portrayed by Snoop in the Starsky & Hutch movie. Or, for that matter, Snoop’s own forays into both hardcore and softcore pornography — most notably on the Girls Gone Wild series, especially popular with the frat-boy crowd.

But what about the woman in this case? Rape is obviously a serious crime, but so is extortion, and to be sure, $25 million buys a lot of motive. If Bell was so concerned about backstage drug use, why didn’t she leave when the party began? The fact is, she chose to pursue financial compensation over a criminal case in her attempt to resolve the matter.

There are no winners here. The lawsuit’s allegations adds an entirely ominous meaning to Snoop’s recent song “Can I Get a Flicc Witchu,” not to mention his earlier hit “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None).” Even if the sex crime allegations are baseless, a media feeding frenzy could put Snoop in the notorious company of Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson, and Michael Jackson. And if the woman wins her suit, Snoop will really “pay the cost to be the boss.”

But what could really make the shizzle hit the fizzle is the fact that Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show runs on ABC, which is owned by Disney, that progenitor of fine family-oriented fare. Hmm. Didn’t know Mickey Mouse was down with cocaine, blunts, champagne knockout drops, and gang rapes, now did you?

Paying out hush money to cover up a sexual assault behind closed doors at a major media corporation seems more like a General Hospital plotline than a real-life occurrence. What’s next? Scott Peterson starring in an ABC After School Special? A full-length animated retelling of the legend of Vlad the Impaler, featuring the voice talents of Ben Stiller?

While we’re on the subject, now that we’ve heard about drug- and alcohol-fueled orgies on The Jimmy Kimmel Show, what else about ABC and Disney don’t we know? Did Ralph Malph, Dumbo, and Pinocchio conspire to sell bricks of black-tar heroin to corn farmers in Kentucky? Were Barbara Walters and Cinderella the actual brains behind Heidi Fleiss’ call girl operation? Is Woody from Toy Story really a gun-running, meth-snortin’ militia member? And what’s up with Ted Koppel’s toupee? Was it used to smuggle the lost Los Alamos computer disks to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan? We want the truth, dammit! After all, what is the world coming to when you can’t trust your favorite gangsta rapper anymore?

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