In one of the most tragic and brutal attacks on a celebrity in recent times, author Salman Rushdie was stabbed onstage in New York City when he was about to give a lecture in August 2022. The assailant, Hadi Matar, was eventually held back by several bystanders who rushed in to help, but the attacker had already caused considerable damage and tried to continue his assault even while being restrained, as reported by The New York Times.
Rushdie managed to survive the grievous injuries he received, but at great cost. When talking with the Spanish newspaper El País, the writer’s agent, Andrew Wylie, described the horrific results of the attack and said, “[His wounds] were profound, but he’s [also] lost the sight of one eye … He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso.”
Rushdie had hoped to re-emerge back into society after years of hiding due to threats to his life brought on by declarations from the Iranian government. The author’s controversial novel, “The Satanic Verses,” has been considered highly offensive to the Islamic regime, which also motivated Matar to make his vicious assault. In an interview with the New York Post, the assailant said, “I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person. I don’t like him. I don’t like him very much. He’s someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.”
