Early on Saturday I received a terrible phone call that a friend of mine was involved in a hate crime. This truely has to stop!!
Kevin Aviance a gay singer and performer who has several No. 1 dance hits was savagely beaten by six men in the East Village after leaving the gay bar "Phoenix" on 13th street & 1st Ave in NYC.
The teens then began tossing trash at him, and as he began to cross 16th Street at First Avenue, one of them sucker-punched him from behind, knocking him to the ground. They then stomped on him in the middle of the intersection.
"I got kicked in my head 12 times. They kicked me in my back, They kicked in my knees. They just kept kicking," Aviance said from his bed at Beth Israel Hospital. "They kept yelling 'F- - -ing faggot!' I thought I would be dead. I really thought they were going to kill me."
Aviance passed out. When he woke up, the teens were gone - having made off with his cellphone - and he was lying in the middle of the street. "I woke up and taxis were swerving around me," he said.
A good Samaritan helped him walk to the nearby hospital, where he was listed in serious condition with a shattered jaw and severe bruises all over his body. His jaw was to be wired shut later yesterday.
By early this morning, cops had arrested all four members of the wolfpack.
The officer said one of the teens had confessed to assaulting Aviance after yelling out to him when he first walked past, "Do you think you're diesel [tough]? You're a faggot."
Aviance, who hit No. 1 on the Billboard dance charts with his songs "Da Da Din" in 1997 and "Alive" in 2003, said he was doubly upset because he was scheduled for many performances during Gay Pride Week next week.
"I'm supposed to be doing all this stuff. With my jaw wired shut, what can I do?" he said.
Aviance said he was shocked that the teens attacked him, because he wasn't in drag at the time, but was wearing a pair of Helmut Lang boots, black baggy shorts and a sleeveless hooded sweatshirt.
"I've walked down the streets in heels, full-on drag queen in broad daylight and at night - nothing like this has ever happened. I mean, I was dressed as a boy," he said.
"I had pumps in my bag. If they had seen those pumps, man, I would have been dead."
THIS HAS TO STOP!!! IT IS DISCUSTING!!!!!!!