Axl Rose responded late Tuesday (6/27) to reports that he had been arrested earlier that day after a dust-up with a security guard at the Stockholm, Sweden hotel where Guns N' Roses [ tickets ] were staying following their concert in the city.

Published reports indicated that the scuffle broke out after the guard tried to break up and argument Rose was having with an unidentified woman in the hotel's lobby. A prepared statement that Rose issued Tuesday suggests that the woman in question works for him, and that they were merely "talking."

"We had a great gig in Stockholm and I am not going to let this incident spoil that," Rose said in the statement. "My assistant Beta and I were talking in the lobby of the hotel when security started to give us a hard time. My only concern was to make sure she was OK."

The statement went on to say that Rose is now in Oslo, Norway, and that Swedish authorities are "no longer pursuing this matter."

As previously reported, Rose was arrested after allegedly fighting with--and biting--the security guard and causing damage to the hotel. Witnesses reportedly told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Rose broke a mirror in the hotel's reception area during the incident.

Police reportedly kept Rose in custody for much of the day, claiming that he was "deemed too intoxicated to be questioned right away," police spokesperson Tawe Hagg told the Associated Press. The rocker was eventually released after he pleaded guilty to charges of violent conduct and criminal damage, both misdemeanors, and agreed to pay a fine of 40,000 crowns ($5,460), as well as 10,000 crowns in compensation to the guard, according to Reuters.

Rose and his band--of which he is the only remaining original member--are working the road in anticipation of the long-delayed release of "Chinese Democracy," which will be the group's first album of original material since the early '90s. No specific release date has been announced.