Suge Knight has given his first interview since being imprisoned, in which he repeats claims that Dr Dre was involved in a plot to have him killed.
This week saw the Death Row records co-founder sentenced to 28 years in prison following a hit-and-run incident in 2015. The hip-hop titan, 53, was formally sentenced today (October 4) after pleading “no contest” to a manslaughter charge last month just days before his trial was due to begin.
Knight was accused of running over two men in Compton, Los Angeles after a confrontation on the set of acclaimed NWA biopic Straight Outta’ Compton in January 2015.
Now in his first interview from prison, Knight has repeated claims that lay the blame with Dr Dre – calling the incident a “murder-for-hire case”.
“They also got the paper trail with all the checks and proof of when they talked to the witnesses saying that Dre came to them first and asked the two guys how much it cost to get rid of me,” Knight told The Blast. “And they said, ‘What you mean by get rid of?’ And they said, ‘Kill him.’”
Knight had previously threatened to sue Dre for $300 million back in 2016, alleging that the rapper, Universal Music, and Apple tried to have him killed.
Denying the claims back in 2016, a lawyer for Dr Dre said: “Given that Dre has had zero interaction with Suge since leaving Death Row Records in 1996, we hope that Suge’s lawyer has lots of malicious prosecution insurance.”
Knight founded Death Row records with NWA’s Dr Dre in 1991, but later declared bankruptcy and the label was sold at auction for $24m. His checkered legal history includes two previous jail stints in 1997 and 2003.
Earlier this year, Dr Dre and Ice Cube have won an appeal over a wrongful death lawsuit involving Knight.
Meanwhile, Knight’s son recently took to social media to claim that Tupac is in fact alive and well and living in Malaysia.
Dre is yet to respond to Knight’s latest comments.