Travis Scott 'Fortnite' Emote Removed in Wake of Astroworld Tragedy

By Brenda Alexander

Travis Scott remains under a microscope amid the fallout from the Astroworld Festival tragedy. The annual event, which featured a crowd of 50,000, ended after a series of crowd surges. Eight people died as a result and 300 others were hospitalized. The remaining two days of the festivals were canceled. Scott has vowed to pay medical bills and funeral costs, as well as fully cooperate with investigators to uncover exactly what took place. Now, it appears Scott has lost a recent deal.

Scott's emote in the popular video game Fortnite has been removed. The "Out West" emoted featured audio of Scott's song of the same title. It's no longer available in Fortnite's item shop, The Verge reports. Epic declined to comment to The Verge regarding why the emote was removed.

Last year, Scott held a Fortnite virtual concert. Multiple Travis Scott-themed items were created and sold in celebration of the event. His previous items remain available for purchase but it's unclear whether or not they will be removed in the future.

Scott and Live Nation are currently under a lot of criticism. Complaints of overcrowding, minimal security, and overall safety concerns regarding crowd control have been the most areas of contention. 

Darius Williams, a security guard who was hired for the festival, told TMZ that it was clear from the start that there was not much clarity around how security would be used. "It was pretty vague exactly what the roles would be," he said. "The day before Astroworld, I completed the orientation and the training for the process, and when I arrived on Friday morning around 7 a.m., they were still pretty vague. [They] didn't really tell us what we would be doing."

Williams said that he and other candidates were required to take a licensing exam for a Level 2 security officer. He says the test was open book and that the instructors gave them the answers. When he got to the training, he says he noticed the event was severely understaffed, adding he estimates that for every 500-1,000 festival-goers, there was just one security guard. As a result, he decided to drop out of the gig last minute, the day the festival began. 

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