Dr. Dre apologizes to 'women I've hurt'

Andrea Mandell | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Dr. Dre: I apologize to 'women I've hurt' Dr. Dre issued an apology via the 'New York Times' addressing women he has hurt in the past. The apology comes after allegations from several different women, including music journalist Dee Barnes.

With great success comes great scrutiny.

That's the glare Dr. Dre is facing, thanks to Straight Outta Compton, now a box office smash.

Critics of the film note that elements of the N.W.A. hip-hop biopic completely side-steps violent outbursts in the group's past, most notably Dr. Dre's alleged history of violence against women. Director F. Gary Gray has said the movie "wasn't about a lot of side stories."

Now, Dr. Dre is finally apologizing.

Last week, he told Rolling Stone — the magazine where he had once contemptuously dismissed allegations of attacking music journalist Dee Barnes in 1991 — that he made some "(expletive) horrible mistakes in my life...I was young, (expletive) stupid."

He stopped himself from denying the allegations were true. "Some of them are," he admitted. "Those are some of the things that I would like to take back. It was really (expletive). But I paid for those mistakes, and there's no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again."

On Friday, he issued a more direct apology via the New York Times: "Twenty-five years ago I was a young man drinking too much and in over my head with no real structure in my life," he told the Times in statement. "However, none of this is an excuse for what I did. I've been married for 19 years and every day I'm working to be a better man for my family, seeking guidance along the way. I'm doing everything I can so I never resemble that man again."

He added: "I apologize to the women I've hurt. I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives."

The three women at the center of the allegations are Barnes, formerly a hip-hop journalist; Michel'le, an R&B singer and Dr. Dre's former girlfriend; and Tairrie B. In 1991, angered by a Barnes interview, Barnes said (at the time of the incident) Dr. Dre began punching her in the head and "slamming her face and the right side of her body repeatedly against a wall."

Charged with assault and battery, he pleaded no contest. He was sentenced to community service and probation, fined $2,500 and ordered to make a domestic violence P.S.A.; a civil suit was settled out of court.

On Tuesday, Barnes wrote an essay for Gawker saying she still suffers "from horrific migraines that started only after the attack," she wrote. "My head does ring and it hurts, exactly in the same spot every time where he smashed my head against the wall."

Still, Barnes doesn't think that scene should have been in the movie. "The truth is too ugly for a general audience," she wrote. "I didn't want to see a depiction of me getting beat up, just like I didn't want to see a depiction of Dre beating up Michel'le, his one-time girlfriend ... But what should have been addressed is that it occurred."

The artist, producer and mogul just released his surprise third solo album, Compton: A Soundtrack, timed to the movie. He's also the biggest success story of N.W.A. Last year, the music company that Dr. Dre helped establish, Beats, was sold to Apple for $3 billion.

Barnes said she has struggled to find work since speaking out. "Nobody wants to work with me. They don't want to affect their relationship with Dre," she wrote.

Apple also issued a statement: "Dre has apologized for the mistakes he's made in the past and he's said that he's not the same person that he was 25 years ago. We believe his sincerity and after working with him for a year and a half, we have every reason to believe that he has changed."

Straight Outta Compton earned $60.2 million in its first weekend, more than doubling studio predictions.