Pap who accused Louis Tomlinson of attacking him bragged about 'provoking' celebrities

We were all left horrified to hear that Louis Tomlinson had been arrested at LAX airport on Friday night following an altercation with the paparazzi.

It was reported that the One Direction star had attacked a pap, with him being booked for battery and released from jail on $20,000 bail.

However, within hours video footage of the incident was obtained by Radar Online, showing that Louis had seemingly slipped and accidentally knocked over the pap, who was following him.

The photographer, Karl Larsen, went to hospital with concussion, claiming that Louis had “smashed his head on the floor” and it has now been revealed that Larsen once bragged about provoking celebrities to get a response… And he even sued a member of Lana Del Rey’s team for $10,000 after obtaining a cut finger in a scuffle.

Back in 2010, Karl appeared on Howard Stern’s radio show following a famous confrontation with actor Mel Gibson. In the video footage of Mel approaching him, you can hear Karl tell a fellow paparazzi: “We’re going to be rich.”

Questioned about his aggressive questioning of Mel in the video, Karl admits to Stern that he lets celebrities “dig their own hole” by provoking them.

He explained: “Paparazzi 101 is that you don’t want to confront anybody, you just want them to dig their own hole. I took a big risk opening the window and saying that spiel to him, I wanted to double down on [his reaction] so I roll down the window and berate him.”

It has also come to light that Karl once sued singer Lana Del Rey’s team for a whopping $10,000 after he cut his finger during a scuffle with his camera.

The pap was trying to take photos of the singer’s music video, which was being shot on public property, and he explained: “I did have a bad confrontation with a couple of people who were crew members.

“They wrestled my camera out of my hands and in the process cut my finger. I ended up suing them and getting $10,000 out of it, which worked out great.”

Tellingly, Karl also revealed that he works with tipsters, particularly “airport tippers”, adding that they will “get a list of everyone flying out and they can feed that to photographers.”

It is thought that Karl intends to launch a lawsuit against Louis following Friday’s altercation, although with the video footage appearing to be in Louis’ favour, there is a chance that he might not get such a huge payout this time around.