Nick Lachey was reportedly ordered to attend anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings after an altercation with photographer Jody Santos. The veteran celebrity photographer claims she has never received an apology from the Love Is Blind co-host. She claims Lachey tried to hit her while she was taking photos of him and his wife, Vanessa Lachey, leaving a restaurant on March 27, 2022.
After the 98 Degrees singer saw Santos taking photos of him and Vanessa leaving a restaurant, he flipped her off from across the street. He then approached her, reached through the window, and tried to snatch her phone, Santos claims. She also said Lachey cursed at her. She filed a police report and a complaint with Beverly Hills Police, reports The Daily Mail.
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In February, the district attorney’s office finally took action on the complaint. They field a “pre-filing diversion,” which allows a person to keep a clean criminal record if they complete certain conditions. Lachey was ordered to complete 52 sessions of anger management classes and attend AA meetings, according to documents the Mail obtained.
“He has to complete them within a reasonable time which is like a year or so,” Santos told the Mail. “If he fails to do so, they will move forward to prosecute him with non-compliance and he will get arrested.” She also said Lachey and his team have never apologized.
“He’s had plenty of time to apologize, but instead he just figured I would go away,” Santos said. “What he did was wrong. Attempting to bust his fist through my car window when all I was doing was taking photographs of him. He should have been thanking me for the free publicity. I mean, really. Talk about an oversized ego.”
Santos has been a paparazzo for 18 years and noted it is common practice to take pictures of celebrities leaving pricey restaurants in Beverly Hills. On the night of the altercation, she spotted Lachey and his wife leaving Mastro’s Steakhouse and just thought she would try to get a picture of him. When they noticed her, Santos said Lachey began walking towards her car in an “aggressive” manner.
“I immediately locked my door and rolled up my window as fast as I could,” Santos recalled. “He then start[s] punching the window. I thought he was going to break his hand, that’s how hard he was hitting the glass. I am surprised he didn’t shatter the window.” Meanwhile, another person was recording the entire incident.
At one point, Lachey walked away. Santos said she rolled down her window and asked him why he was suddenly so “mean” to her when he had been nice in the past. He then came back to her car and started cursing. He reached into her car and tried to grab her phone. “He couldn’t get it because it was strapped around my neck and I was trying to lean towards the passenger’s side as best I could,” Santos said.
The day after the incident, Lachey did tweet about what happened without apologizing. “Last night, after enjoying a great dinner with my wife and our dear friend, the paparazzi harassed us as we walked back to our hotel,” he tweeted on March 28. “I clearly overreacted. I’ve been in this game long enough to know that their antics are sadly part of the deal. Stupid of me. Done.”
In another tweet, Lachey claimed he never got physicalย during the incident. “However, for TMZ or anyone else to say that I was violent or that I “got physical” with someone is reckless and absolutely false,” he wrote. “Once again, TMZ likes to [create] their own clickbait narrative. Life’s too short, we move on.”
Santos told the Daily Mail she never got out of her car though. “I want Nick to know that it’s not okay to come after a photographer, let alone a female one and use foul, sexist language,” she said. “He needs to take accountability for his actions. It’s one thing to be violent towards a woman and call her foul names, and it’s another when you blame the other person and lie about what really happened. He twisted the truth and put the blame on me.”
