The 19-year-old woman who threw a chair off a downtown Toronto high-rise balcony over a busy highway earlier this year appears to make a one-second cameo in Drake’s new music video.
Drake released a new song titled “War,” along with a music video, at midnight on Tuesday.
The video, which gained about three million views in less than 24 hours, runs three minutes long.
Of those three minutes, about a second appears to show Marcella Zoia around 2:37. At that second, the video shows a room full of people appearing to be drinking and smoking under blue lighting.
One week ago, Zoia posted a picture of herself to her Instagram account, standing in a room that appears similar to the one where the video was shot, wearing the same outfit. These posts have since been deleted.
Drake has since responded to the apparent cameo in an Instagram post.
"I don't choose extras for my videos by the way," the post reads, followed by a chair emoji and a shocked face emoji.
For her part, Zoia took to Instagram after news surfaced about her video appearance and suggested that reaction was overblown.
“People starving out here and y’all concerned about me being in the background of a video for less than a second…”
Last month, Zoia pleaded guilty to mischief endangering life at Old City Hall in connection with the February incident that was filmed and shared widely online.
No injuries were reported in the incident.
On Nov. 15, her lawyer, Gregory Leslie, told reporters Zoia was “remorseful” for her actions.
“She is a young lady who made a mistake,” he said outside the courthouse. “When you deal with persons her age we look at, one of the possibilities, or one of the factors that the judge has to examine is the issue of rehabilitation and she is, in my opinion, already a changed woman and she will be doing much better.”
On Tuesday, CP24 attempted to contact Leslie by email and phone regarding the video appearance, but there has not been a response so far.
A sentencing hearing in Zoia’s case is expected to take place on Jan. 14.
The Crown is asking for up to six months in jail, but Leslie is pushing for a suspended sentence, which would include Zoia being put on probation with undetermined conditions for an unknown period of time.
