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Parents, beware: If you like to give your kids a little freedom to roam, just make sure they don't do it around Patti LaBelle. The 67-year-old Grammy-winning R&B singer is being sued for allegedly throwing a bottle of water on Roseanna Monk and her 18-month-old daughter Genevieve -- and then taking a swing at the mother, the New York Daily News reports.
According to the suit filed by Roseanna Monk and her husband Kevin in New York Supreme Court Monday, LaBelle (real name Patricia Louise Holte) started yelling at Roseanna in the lobby of a Riverside Blvd. apartment building on the Upper West Side earlier this month, after she saw Genevieve running around on her own.
"What are you doing letting your kid run around like that?" Sam Davis, an attorney for the Monks, quoted LaBelle as saying.
LaBelle allegedly proceeded to scream at Roseanna and Genevieve, throwing water from a bottle into the mother and daughter's face. Monk, in response, allegedly picked up Genevieve and said, "Are you happy that this is what you have done to this baby?"
That was all it took for LaBelle to "take a swing" at Monk, Davis said.
Representatives for LaBelle did not respond to the allegations when asked by the Daily News.
Davis said his clients had been willing to let the matter go if LaBelle, who's a temporary tenant in their building while she appears in Fela! on Broadway, offered an apology and made a donation to children's cancer charity -- but LaBelle allegedly refused. That's when they decided to sue for unspecified damages.
The lawsuit comes just five months after a West Point cadet sued LaBelle, alleging that the singer's bodyguards attacked him in a Houston airport.
"Violence seems to be part of their road show," Davis said on Monday. "Someone's got to teach her even a diva can't attack and frighten and assault regular people in the building."
