The top 10 celebrity versus paparazzi scuffles

Hip-hop heavyweight Kanye West has been arrested after allegedly smashing the camera equipment of a paparazzi photographer at Los Angeles International Airport.

The Grammy Award-winning rapper and his road manager were taken into custody as they attempted to board a flight to Hawaii following yesterday’s incident.

Part of the scuffle was caught on video by a cameraman from celebrity gossip website TMZ.com. The clip, which begins mid-confrontation, shows West struggling with a photographer, who is yelling for help, and pulling his camera off him. West’s road manager then takes the camera and smashes it on the floor. The rapper follows suit and lifts what appears to be a flash above his head and throws it to the ground.

The manager then lunges at the TMZ paparazzo and tries to wrestle the video camera from him.

The TMZ photographer alleges that the manager ripped the microphone from his camera and then threw all his equipment to the ground.

He also claims that after police arrived and West discovered that the incident had been caught on tape, he lunged at him. Police pulled West from the photographer and handcuffed him, the photographer said.

Today, West’s attorney, Blair Berk, was declining to comment.

A Los Angeles airport spokesman said that camera equipment worth more than $10,000 (£5,700) was broken during the incident.

Police released the pair on bail and are yet to decide whether to press vandalism charges.

The incident occurred in a public area of the airport's terminal fourm, where media are permitted to take photographs.

West, who found fame in 2004 with the album The College Dropout, has become known for his temper in recent years.

In 2006, when the rapper failed to win the best video gong at the MTV Europe Music Awards, he took to the stage and ranted to the audience that he should have won.

Last year, he vowed never attend to the MTV Awards again after claiming the organisers had exploited Britney Spears and that he had been “betrayed” by them because he was denied a performance on the main stage.

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