He’s rebounded beautifully.
Subway busker Iain Forrest, who made headlines last year when he was viciously attacked by an unhinged stranger in a caught-on-camera beatdown at the Herald Square station, has taken his talent from the MTA to the NBA.
Forrest has played the national anthem before Knicks games on his electric cello on the floor of Madison Square Garden.
“Spike Lee . . . came up to me, shook my hand, and said, ‘You know, you played that like a mother — well, you can fill in the rest of that word,” Forrest told The Post ahead of the Eastern Conference semifinals, when the Knicks take on the Celtics.
Forrest, 30, went viral during one performance when his noise-canceling earpieces malfunctioned and he couldn’t hear himself playing.
“I was freaking out. I thought, ‘I’m playing the wrong notes. It probably sounds terrible. I’m going to get booed at the end.’ But people were cheering, clapping and standing up,” he recalled.
Forrest has also played songs like Rihanna’s “We Found Love” during halftime, and said it’s surreal being on the same stage as basketball royalty.
“I walk out on the court to do my soundcheck. That’s the same time that all the players are warming up, so you’re just casually passing by [Jalen] Brunson,” he said.
“A few of the guys come up and say, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen a cello look like that before’ and they remember me now and say, ‘Have a good performance tonight.’ It’s almost like I’m part of the Knicks family.”
Forrest, a New Jersey native who was raised on the Upper East Side and in Maryland, moved back to New York in 2017 to start Mt. Sinai Medical School. While hitting the books, he also strums his cello underground as part of the MTA’s “Under New York” music program.
The busker’s musical genius was quickly discovered by multi-platinum recording artist and subway rider Josh Groban back in 2019.
“He saw me perform a few times, loved it, took my card and his manager called me and said, ‘Hey, we’re doing a show at Radio City, we’d love to have you.’”
Executives with the Yankees, who were in the audience at Radio City, reached out to Forrest — and that led to his gigs with the baseball team and then with the Knicks.
Forrest, who is graduating from medical school this month and already landed a job at Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital in Maryland, has more than moved on from the February 2024 subway attack — where a woman bashed him in the head with his own metal water bottle.
“If you look at the video, the person’s like lurking behind me as I’m playing for a while and then just out of nowhere, bam . . . never saw the person, never knew who the hell this person was,” he recalled.
The woman accused in the attack, Brooklyn resident Amira Hunter, a 23-year-old with eight prior arrests, “is being tested for competence to see if she can stand trial,” he said.
A month after the 2024 attack, Forrest, who started an advocacy group for the safety of subway performers, was back playing for MTA commuters and the Knicks’ most famous fans.
“Once Larry David was walking by with daughter, so I’m like, ‘Oh my God, Hey, how’s it going, Larry?’ And he’s just like, ‘It’s going great; you sound awesome,’” he recalled.
“My wife recorded it and she’s like, ‘That’s crazy . . . Larry David likes your music.’”
