Lil Nas X Stopped by Oslo Police After Riding Through Tunnel on E-Scooter

Lil Nas X was reportedly among four Americans stopped by Norwegian police after they rode through an Oslo tunnel on electric scooters. Authorities briefly closed the Festning (Fortress) Tunnel but none of the scooter riders were detained or charged.

The tourists had followed a GPS route into the 1.1 mile tunnel late on Monday evening (July 11), police said. The four “used large parts of the roadway” so a road traffic centre had to shut down some lanes, police added.

“They apologized. We have escorted them out,” the police department said on Twitter of the incident in which the four appeared to get lost in the tunnel. At press time a spokesperson for Lil Nas could not be reached for comment on the alleged incident.

Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that Lil Nas X, 24, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, was one of the four tourists. The paper posted what it said was an image from Lil Nas’ Instagram Story in which the MC posed with two Norwegian cops in front of their car, with the rapper kneeling on the ground between the smiling officers.

Lil Nas’ story also reportedly featured a snap of the “Industry Baby” star standing inside the tunnel with the caption, “on the way to being imprisoned in Norway.” Police did not confirm that Lil Nas was among those stopped — they only reported that they stopped four Americans for getting lost in the tunnel — but the posts from Nas appeared to confirm the report.

The musician is in Oslo to perform at the outdoor Slottsffell festival on Wednesday (July 11).

It is not the first time that a foreign tourist rode through part of a vast and busy tunnel system in the centre of the Norwegian capital on an electric scooter. In 2019, a man who said he followed a route given by Google Maps entered the nearly 10-mile long Opera Tunnel complex. He was not charged or detained.

Gil Kaufman

Billboard