French Montana just turned one of the ugliest moments of the Knicks’ championship weekend into something worth celebrating. When the team clinched its NBA Finals win and crowds poured into the streets around Madison Square Garden, 59-year-old taxi driver Noureddine Bitat was simply trying to get home to Queens. Instead, a mob swarmed his yellow cab, stomped on the roof and hood, shattered the windshield, ripped out the meter, and dragged him from behind the wheel. The footage of him standing on the curb, devastated, while strangers danced on top of the car that feeds his family went viral within hours. French Montana saw it, and he could not let it sit.
The rapper presented Bitat with a $75,000 GoFundMe check on June 17, dated and delivered in person, surrounded by the people who helped pull the effort together. For French Montana, this was never about a photo opportunity. It was personal in a way most celebrity good deeds never are. He has spoken openly about how his family emigrated from Morocco when he was 13, and how his own father worked as a taxi driver in New York City to keep the household afloat. Watching another immigrant man get brutalized over a car he needed to survive cut straight to the bone. As French Montana put it, he just saw a man trying to feed his family.That clarity is what makes this story land harder than the average feel-good headline. Bitat is an Algerian immigrant who was working a long shift when the celebration turned on him. He had no stake in the game. By his own account, he did not even know who the Knicks were. He was a working man in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a moment of collective joy curdled into something cruel and frightening. He later said he feared the cab might be set on fire. He ended up at the hospital. The vehicle, a wheelchair-accessible model he used to serve riders who depend on accessible transport, was left in ruins.
French Montana did not just write a check and move on. He used his platform to find Bitat in the first place, publicly asking his followers to help locate the man from the video. He then looped in content creator Zachery Dereniowski, known online as MDMotivator, who brought a large audience and a track record of turning attention into real help. Together they partnered with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the union Bitat belongs to, and built a GoFundMe that raised the full $75,000 to get him back on his feet. French Montana made a point of shouting out everyone who contributed, framing the win as a collective one rather than a solo act of charity.
The support did not stop at the check. After speaking with Bitat directly, French Montana learned the driver no longer wants to get back behind the wheel of a taxi at all, an understandable reaction after living through that kind of violation. So the rapper committed to covering Bitat’s living expenses while he figures out his next chapter, a pledge that according to CBS reporting could stretch up to a year. That distinction matters. A lump sum patches a hole. Ongoing support gives a traumatized man the breathing room to rebuild his life on his own terms instead of being forced straight back into the seat that nearly cost him everything.
There is an accountability layer to this story too, and it deserves attention. The NYPD charged a 21-year-old Florida man named Saul Vargas with criminal mischief for the damage to the cab. The celebration that injured Bitat was not victimless, and the fact that someone is facing consequences underscores how far things went. A title run should be a moment of pride for a city and its fans. It should never leave a working father bloodied beside his livelihood while a crowd films it for clout.
What French Montana modeled here is the kind of response that actually moves the needle. He did not lecture or post a vague statement. He identified a specific person, mobilized a specific network, and delivered specific, tangible help, both immediate and ongoing. That blueprint, of using reach and resources to lift up someone the spotlight would otherwise crush, is the part of this story worth holding onto long after the GoFundMe closes.
For Bitat, the past week has been a brutal lesson in how quickly life can flip and how strangers can either tear you down or build you back up. He experienced both within days. The same internet that broadcast his worst moment also rallied to restore him, with French Montana leading the charge because he recognized his own father’s struggle in a man he had never met. Immigrant solidarity, made visible and made real. That is the version of New York worth celebrating, and French Montana made sure it got the louder ending.
