HOUSTON — A West Point cadet is suing R&B diva Patti LaBelle, saying she ordered her bodyguards to beat him up as he waited for a ride home outside a Houston airport terminal.

The lawsuit alleges the cadet, Richard King, was waiting for his brother and father to pick him up outside one of the terminals at Bush Intercontinental Airport, when three of LaBelle’s bodyguards attacked him. King was in Houston, his hometown, while on spring break from West Point.

“Apparently, defendant LaBelle believed King was standing too close to her luggage, even though he was oblivious to her presence and the danger he was in,” according to King’s lawsuit, which was filed in Houston civil court last Wednesday and also names the bodyguards, the airport and a taxi dispatcher as co-defendants. “LaBelle lowered the window of her limousine and gave a command to her bodyguards. They sprang into action.”