Podcast Host Joe Budden Charged With Lewdness Over Naked Sleepwalking Incident

Former rapper and popular podcast host Joe Budden has been charged with lewdness in connection to an incident in early December at his apartment building in Edgewater, New Jersey.

Budden, 44, was charged on Dec. 4 after a neighbor reportedly saw the internet personality standing naked in the hallway of their building at about 7 a.m., according to a news release from the Edgewater Police Department cited by Billboard magazine.

Joe Budden, shown here at an April 2022 event in New York City, was accused by a neighbor of standing naked in their apartment building's hallway.

Shareif Ziyadat /Getty Images

The incident was recorded on the neighbor’s doorbell camera and showed Budden trying to enter numbers onto the keypad several times before heading back to his home, according to the news release.

Budden’s attorney, Nima Ameri, called the Edgewater police announcement “inflammatory and slanderous,” adding that the incident stemmed from the rapper’s long history of sleepwalking, according to a statement issued on Wednesday.

The lawyer accused Police Chief Donald Martin of racial bias after he issued a news release before Budden’s court date.

“Had Mr. Budden not been a prominent Black voice for his community, we do no believe such a press release would have been issue over these mediocre accusations,” Ameri wrote. In his rap career, Budden’s top hit was 2003′s “Pump It Up.”

Budden addressed the charge in a recent episode of “The Joe Budden Podcast,” saying, “I just slept-walked somewhere that I shouldn’t have slept-walked.”

Budden has filed cross-complaints against his neighbor, Ameri told TMZ. Budden’s complaints against his neighbor include “substantially more serious charges” and “possible felony charges,” Ameri said, though he did not specify what those charges were.

“Instead of focusing on these more serious matters, the Chief has chosen to exploit this incident for what we perceive as his personal gain, thus compromising Mr. Budden’s constitutional right to a fair trial,” Ameri said in the Wednesday news release.

The Edgewater Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.