18,000 People Descend On Rockefeller Plaza To Show Love For Chris Brown

By Dodai Stewart | July 15, 2011 | 4:35pm

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This morning the Today show had one of its biggest crowds ever, and it was for Chris Brown. He performed for about half an hour; throngs of people clogged the streets surrounding Rockefeller Plaza, and the security team in place estimated that there were 18,000 folks in attendance. Lady Gaga had twenty thousand, breaking the record set by Justin Bieber (a mere 12,000).

Interestingly enough, while Chris Brown “performed” a bunch of auto-tune driven tracks — seriously, it was like listening to a robot — he was not interviewed by the NBC anchors. And the musical guests are always interviewed, even if just briefly. Perhaps NBC producers were intimidated by the infamous tantrum Breezy threw at the Good Morning America studios. Maybe they didn’t want their windows broken. Or maybe Brown’s record label made a deal: He’ll sing more songs if you don’t ask any questions. Whatever the case may be, it’s obvious that Brown’s past — property damage, hurling homophobic insults on Twitter , and being charged with felony assault and making criminal threats following the incident in which he punched, bit and choked Rihanna until she was unconscious — did not keep his fans away.