The most recent incident happened in a FL bar owned by his tour accountant. A guy came up to him 4 separate times trying to get a reaction. Stapp says that, trying "situational avoidance" after a previous incident in a tattoo parlor, he offered to buy the guy a beer. But the guy kept coming back for more and finally got a rise out of Stapp with "It's nice that you exploit your son for money" Poor timing: there was a lot of bad stuff going on then with his divorce, and, in fact, later that night he'd be sitting in tears discussing it with his friends. "That was when I popped him a couple of times" Stapp said. "I jabbed him with the left and then crossed with the left and he went down, and that was it." Someone photographed Stapp as he attacked and he figures that was the reason behind the whole thing.

"These situations, I'm not proud of how I handle them", he says. "Whatever anyone says, they're just words. I have to learn that." He learned a good lesson one day playing golf with Ken Giffey Jr. Stapp was telling these stories, explaining the things people said to him.
"You can't do that stuff, no matter what they say", Griffey advised him. "Ken" Stapp said, "it's just hard when they start hitting your family and--"
Griffey interrupted. "What about when they call you nigger?" he asked.

The Rolling Stone's version from an UN-NAMED SPY

April 2001

As if that stanky white tank top weren't bad enough. Now Scott Stapp is going on dates with Kristy Swanson (you know, the star of the movie version of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) and getting into brawls. According to Rolling Stone, Scotty and Kristy were partying happily at the Mad Love Room club in St. Augustine, Florida, on Sunday -- dancing, chattin' up the VIP crowd, and even posing for pics with fans. But then, around 12:30 a.m., a guy in the club started mouthing off to Scott. "Some local went up to Scot while he was dancing and said 'You should've stuck with Pearl Jam," an unnamed spy reports. "So Scott yelled back, 'You wanna disrespect me?' and starts screaming. And the other guy was like, 'You're not a superstar.'" So Scott, who reportedly hates it when people tell him Creed sounds like Pearl Jam wannabes, went postal and punched the heckler in the face, giving him a bloody lip and black eye before the crowd could break them up. Police eventually arrived on the scene, but after questioning witnessed, didn?t charge anyone. Creed's publicist had no comment on the incident, even though it's the second time in two months Scott got violent. On February 8th he verbally accosted the owner of a Maitland, Florida, tattoo parlor after the guy told other customers who Scott was. Yo, Scott, relax!