Technology

Tyrese Gibson Accidentally Confirms the Apple-Beats Acquisition, Before Video Disappears

Actor/musician Tyrese Gibson posted a video to Instagram featuring himself and Dr. Dre last night that may have confirmed the rumored Apple acquisition of Beats Electronics. 

Danielle Wiener-Bronner

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Last night, actor/musician Tyrese Gibson posted a video to Instagram and Facebook featuring himself and Dr. Dre that seemed to confirm that the rumored acquisition of Beats Electronics by Apple was a done deal. By morning, the video was gone, suggesting that some lawyers somewhere got very jittery. While no one has refuted last night's story by the Financial Times that the deal is imminent, it's still not official, so Gibson and Dre probably jumped the gun by quite a bit. 

In the video, presumably shot during a studio session/celebration, Gibson (who goes by Tyrese in his singing career) says "billionaire boys club for real... " in reference to the $3.2 billion figure cited in the deal, and the fact that it could potentially make Dr. Dre (a.k..a. Andre Young) a personal billionaire. 

Business Insider captured a screenshot of how the video appeared on Facebook before it was taken down: 

via Business Insider

At one point, Gibson shouts "the Forbes list just changed," presumably to include new billionaire Dre. Dr. Dre, for his part, mostly nods enthusiastically along, but then says himself, over Gibson's shoulder, "The first billionaire in hip-hop, right here from the motherfucking West Coast. Believe that."

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Speaking of Forbes, they report that Dre's stake in Beats Electronics is around 25 percent, which after taxes and lawyers fees, etc., would probably leave him a bit shy of a $1 billion net worth (for now), but would still easily make him the richest rap mogul ever.

In addition to the video, Tyrese has tweeted a number of exuberant allusions to the sale, which have since been deleted. In one, he writes "How did I end up in the studio with Dr Dre ON THE night his deal went public that he did with Apple... " and in another, "Tonight HIP HOP CHANGED FOREVER AND I WAS THERE TO PAY MY RESPECTS!!!!!! Apple = Beats 3.2...." 

Many took this as a sign that the deal with Apple is in the books. 

And, now that it's down, they're speculating as to why it was removed: 

This YouTube video showing a longer clip, which includes the one removed from Facebook and Instagram, remains online for now.

We doubt that some premature bragging is enough to scuttle the deal, which some analysts say seems like a questionable choice for the tech giant. But maybe a team of lawyers somewhere just gets nervous anytime they hear "shit just changed."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.