Man Scales LA Radio Tower With Message About Singer

No one's sure why the guy had a 'Free Billie Eilish' sign; he now faces trespassing charges
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 26, 2023 7:27 AM CDT

A guy with a message about one of America's biggest pop stars scaled the KTLA radio tower in Hollywood on Tuesday, though no one's really sure what that message meant, or what he was trying to accomplish. KTLA reports that soon after 6:30pm, calls started coming in to the Los Angeles Fire Department about a man who'd made his way about 30 feet up the 160-foot tower, dangling a handwritten sign that said "Free Billie Eilish" and at one point strumming an electric guitar.

On the other side of the sign, another puzzling message was spotted: "MK ultra sex slaves Donald Marshall clones." Per ABC7, that phrase appears to be tied to "a dark web conspiracy theory about Illuminati and celebrity cloning." The station notes that as the man did his thing, traffic was shut down below on Sunset Boulevard, and crews scrambled to drag a large inflatable airbag underneath the tower. He "appeared uncooperative," per KTLA, and even though he initially told police he'd make his way down in another 20 minutes, he stayed put for three more hours.

The station notes that power to the tower was shut off until the man eventually came down on his own around 9:30pm, via a ladder that first responders had put up against the side of the tower. He was arrested with incident and faces trespassing charges, per the LAPD. It's unclear from what or whom the 21-year-old singer needs to be liberated—Billboard notes that "Eilish isn't locked away"—but that was irrelevant to the online crowd: "Free Billie Eilish" ended up as a trending topic on Twitter. "Hollywood gonna Hollywood," one commenter wrote. (Eilish showed up on James Corden's show Tuesday night and appeared to be very much free.)

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