Icelandic pop singer Bjork attacked a news photographer in New Zealand, ripping his shirt in half after he ignored a request not to snap any shots, the New Zealand Herald reported on Monday. The incident took place at Auckland International Airport on Sunday, after the musician had flown in for a concert later in the week, the paper said. It echoes an outburst at Bangkok’s airport in 1996, when Bjork unleashed her fury on a journalist.
Glenn Jeffrey, a photographer with the Herald, told the paper Bjork was accompanied by a man who asked him not to take photographs.
“I took a couple of pictures and I got about three or four frames of her … and as I turned and walked away she came up behind me, grabbed the back of my black skivvy (sweatshirt) and tore it down the back,” he said. “As she did this she fell over, she fell to the ground. At no stage did I touch her or speak with her.”
Bjork said nothing during the confrontation, but her companion pleaded with her to stop, Jeffrey said.
The Herald’s Web site reported later that neither the newspaper nor Jeffrey plans to file charges against Bjork, and an Auckland police spokesman said it was not investigating the incident.