It’s long been known that breaking into entertainment through reality TV is never a guarantee that someone will outlast their initial 15 minutes of fame, though the world of social media has certainly helped keep a lot of television personalities relevant over the years. In the case of rapper and former MTV star Rodney “Chopper” Hill, though, social media posts reportedly led to his arrest on charges of sex trafficking.
Rodney Hill, who is better known in the industry as Chopper, first rose to fame as a member of Da Band on the second cycle of MTV and Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Making the Band in the early 2000s. He has kept his non-TV career going, and even recently advertised a college tour dubbed “Life After the Band,” though it’s unclear whether that’s still going forward or not after Hill was arrested in Maryland earlier in April 2022, with a plan to extradite him to Las Vegas where he will face the aforementioned sex trafficking charges.
According to TMZ, legal documents state that Rodney Hill was in communication with an undercover vice detective in Nevada who was posing as a sex worker. The cop stated that an investigation was launched into the rapper’s situation due to social media posts that hinted at a potential sex traffic operation. Even though the account’s posts don’t go back that far, there were apparently enough references to prostitution and pimping — as well as the flaunting of excess wealth — to justify the undercover cop moving forward with the case.
The undercover cop reported that Rodney Hill contacted them through Instagram DMs and allegedly gave them the offer to enhance their finances through prostitution. Further communication occurred through phone calls, with Hill reportedly bragging about traveling all the time and having a variety of homes across the country. At some point, Hill gave the cop a “phone interview,” after which the rapper allegedly stated they would become part of his “team” and “stable.”
After that, it’s claimed that Hill became aggressive, and ordered the undercover officer to pack up their belongings to go to an airport to fly out to meet him in Charlotte, North Carolina. The MTV vet is claimed to have previously told the cop that it wasn’t safe to do business in Las Vegas, due to police cracking down.
When the undercover then stated that they were scared to leave home, in an attempt to stall Rodney Hill, he allegedly became forceful with his speech in an attempt to angrily coerce them into making the trip. It’s also stated that he apparently demanded a fee of $2,000, though it wasn’t specifically stated what that would have been for.
All of that information put together — from the Instagram posts to the DMs to the phone calls to the financial demand — served as enough evidence for law enforcement to step in and make the arrest, charging Rodney Hill with felony sex trafficking. It’s unclear at this point what the next step will be, and Hill has yet to publicly respond to the arrest.
Other than starring in three seasons of Making the Band 2, Rodney “Chopper” Hill also appeared in a sketch parodying the series in Chappelle’s Show, currently available to stream for those with a Netflix subscription or an HBO Max subscription.
