On this day in 2003, Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was left needing seven stitches after he was struck in the face by an object thrown from the crowd during a chaotic gig in New York.
The incident happened at the Hammerstein Ballroom, where Limp Bizkit were performing alongside Korn on the Back To Basics North American tour. Near the end of the set, as the band were powering through their final songs, someone in the audience hurled an unidentified object that hit Durst directly on the chin. Reports at the time said he began bleeding heavily but refused to leave the stage.
Despite the injury, Durst pushed on and completed the show. Paramedics treated him afterwards, and the cut required seven stitches — a moment that quickly became one of the most talked-about episodes of Limp Bizkit’s early-2000s touring years.
Days later, Durst addressed the situation himself, posting a lengthy message to fans and downplaying the drama in typically sardonic fashion. He wrote: “Oh my gosh! Stop the press! Headlines are coming! Fred Durst has a weeeeee cut on his chin! Must have been some fan/band violence eh? Come on now. I went into the pit in NY and climbed onto a railing and was in the line of fire when an unknown object hit me in the chin. As I kept singing I felt a hot gush of something running down my neck and onto my hand. I looked down and sure enough I was bleeding like mad.”
He continued: “Whatever it was had a very sharp edge and sliced my chin just right like a razor blade. We still had five songs left and it didn’t hurt so I kept going. It felt like a very rock and roll moment to me though. When the show was over there was no trip to the hospital as I’ve heard. We had the paramedics on site clean it up and they suggested I have stitches so it won’t scar and they suggested a tetanus shot just in case it was something gnarly.”
Durst later explained that he simply went for dinner before getting the cut treated: “So I went to dinner and later that night saw a doctor that gave me seven micro stitches. It was fast and easy. The next evening I had a tetanus shot in my arm that hurt like a motherf**er! My arm was sore for two days! And today, November 28, I get the stitches removed here in my dressing room. Wah lah!”*
The tour wrapped the following week in Toronto, and despite the injury — and the headlines it generated — Durst treated the whole thing as part and parcel of a volatile nu-metal era defined by wild crowds, unpredictable shows and bands who prided themselves on powering through anything.
