Tulisa denies endorsing London gang in pop video

Tulisa denies endorsing London gang in pop video
Tulisa denies endorsing London gang in pop video (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Tulisa Contostavlos has denied claims she was pledging allegiance to a London gang by making a 'C' sign in her new music video. The X Factor judge was seen filming on the Church End estate in Harlesden, where the criminal gang Crime Scene Boys, also known as the Church Road Soldiers, are based, and posed making a C sign with her hands for the camera, The Sun reported. But Tulisa, 23, has insisted she was making a C symbol in tribute to the London borough of Camden where she grew up, and did not know it was used by the gang. The former N-Dubz star was filming the video for a song featuring the rapper Nines, who The Sun claims has made the C sign himself in several of his videos. Tulisa said in a statement: "I filmed a street video on Sunday night for a track on my album. "The video was a collaboration with the rapper Nines. When we were filming on the street loads of other people turned up and joined in the shoot. "When I was holding my hands in the C sign, this was as a tribute to Camden, my home town and where N-Dubz began. "I am not aware that this sign has anything to with any street gang and I 100 per cent do not endorse any gang violence in any form."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.