Another family has now settled their lawsuits with Travis Scott and the organizers of the 2021 Astroworld Festival disaster in Houston, Texas. One week removed from the release of Scott’s newest studio album UTOPIA, Rolling Stone has learned that the family of John Hilgert, a 14-year-old who lost his life in the crowd surge at Astroworld, privately settled with Scott, Live Nation, Scoremore Shows, and multiple security providers for an undisclosed amount.
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Although this news is just coming to light, documents obtained by Rolling Stone revealed that the settlement took place in February, as the family of Hilgert actually withdrew their civil case and negotiated an out-of-court deal.
They are now the third family of 10 who lost loved ones at the event to reach an agreement with Scott. The settlement came just about four months after the families of 21-year-old Axel Acosta and 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez both reached an agreement with the Astroworld folks in October 2022, though the terms of their settlements were also private.
[RELATED: Houston Police Release Full Report on 2021 Astroworld Tragedy]
Last Friday, the same day UTOPIA arrived, Houston police released a report containing more than 1,000 pages worth of notes and interviews from their Astroworld investigation. Though a grand jury cleared Scott and all involved of any criminal charges earlier this summer, HPD’s report shed more light on the communication between the organizers as attendees were sustaining injuries in the crowd on the fateful November night. After the report came out, Scott’s attorney Kent Schaffer released a statement shunning HPD for trying to overshadow the UTOPIA release.
“The timing of the Houston Police Department report’s release, coinciding with the launch of Travis Scott’s highly anticipated album, is anything but coincidental,” Schaffer wrote.
But soon after this, Bob Hilliard, the attorney for the family of Ezra Blount, a 9-year-old who lost his life at Astroworld, issued a response to Scott and Schaffer where he condemned their indifference.
“For an artist making his living with music, these are stunningly tone-deaf comments about this preventable tragedy that took so many lives and injured so many,” Hilliard said.
Photo by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images
