A fan showed up Friday evening outside Lana Del Rey’s pop concert in Orlando, Florida, with a ticket, a knife and a plan to abduct her, police said.
Michael Hunt, 43, was arrested about a block from Amway Center and charged with stalking and attempted armed kidnapping. Police said he’d been unable to reach the singer.
Earlier Friday, a tipster called police to report alarming posts about Del Rey on Hunt’s social media account, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Police have not provided details about the tip, but local news outlets found a Facebook page that appeared to belong to Hunt, plastered with photos of the singer and filled with bizarre messages to her.
For example, Orlando News 6 reported, Hunt shared a clip from Del Rey’s 2012 music video, in which she sings sadly of an ex-lover: “I love him, I love him, I love him … I still love him.”
“I love you too,” Hunt replied above the video, according to the news station. “I’m so sorry I did this to us.”
That was written at 2 a.m. Thursday, a day before Del Rey was scheduled to perform songs from her Grammy-nominated album “Lust for Life” at the Amway Center, less than a two-hour drive from Hunt’s home outside Tampa.
On the morning of the concert, News 6 reported, Hunt wrote: “It’s probably my last day on Facebook … I’ll see you on the other side.”
The Sentinel obtained a video posted to the same page in which Hunt talked about his plans. “I’m going to probably finish out her tour with her, obviously,” he reportedly told his friends. “Lana knows I’m here. The queen of England knows I’m here. Vladimir knows I’m here. They all know I’m here.”
Hunt has been imprisoned five times, the Sentinel wrote, for crimes ranging from marijuana possession to grand theft with a firearm. His last sentence ended in 2014, after he served nine months for fleeing police near Tampa.
About 8,000 fans were expected at the concert in Orlando, police told the Sentinel. After seeing what he’d written on social media, officers searched throughout Friday and finally found Hunt a block from the Amway Center about 9 p.m., an hour after the show started.
Del Rey’s show went on as planned Friday. She has since performed in two other cities, before her tour takes her across the United States and overseas.
– From news service reports
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