Money,
art and politics. Sometimes, the three inform each other. Some
celebrity singers, models and actors have raked in the bucks in
morally ambiguous ways, making appearances with dictators and paying for
it with scathing publicity. Some claimed ignorance after the
fact and blamed their managers. Who knows what their true intentions
were? What would you do to earn up to $1 million in one night? Here are 10
celebrities who performed for dictators or accepted gifts from them.
Multiple-Offense
Mariah
The megastar who
has been laying down hits for more than 20 years performed in a private
concert in St. Barts in 2008 for family members of the late Libyan dictator
Muammar Gaddafi. She later apologized, humiliated over being unaware of the
concert details. Five years later, she was pinned to the dartboard again when
she rang in the Christmas spirit in Angola for its autocratic President Jose
Eduardo dos Santos, receiving another million-dollar holiday gift. She
was performing in a country where the majority of the population
lives on less than $2 a day. An alleged violator of human
rights, dos Santos is labeled a dictator by most people.
Sting
Got Stung
Sting, aka
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, is not only a sensational singer-songwriter. His
charity work and activism are also facets of his media presence. He’s played
in Tibet, performed to save the rain forests, spoke out against the South
African apartheid… and earned nearly two million euros to play for a
despot. In 2009, he was hired to play a set for Gulnara Karimova, the daughter
and heiress of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov. President Karimov has been cited
by the U.N. and Amnesty International for multiple alleged human rights
violations including imposing death on protesters, child slave labor,
and stealing water from Uzbekistan’s Aral Sea. Sting defended himself, claiming
that UNICEF organized the concert. News reports later claimed this
was untrue.
J-Lo
Stooping Low
Human Rights
Watch lists Turkmenistan as one of the most oppressive regimes today. Well,
Jennifer Lopez didn’t get that memo. In 2013, she issued an apology after
playing a private concert at a Caspian Sea resort for President Gurbanguly
Berdimuhamedow’s 56th birthday party. She said she wouldn’t have performed had
she been aware of the regime’s track record. J.R. Taylor, a member of her
entourage, sent out a tweet that night saying, “The Turkemistan breeze
feels great at night Kidz!” according to The Daily Mail. This in a
country where Twitter and other social media have been blocked.
Hilary
Swank’s Million-Dollar Mistake
The manager of
two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank reportedly booked her for an appearance at
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s birthday celebration in 2011. Kadyrov has
been accused of countless alleged war crimes and dictatorial rule, including
fulfilling a “murder list” of hundreds of Chechen citizens considered threats
to his power. Also in attendance at the celebration were singer Seal and
Belgian action star Jean Claude Van Damme. After the Human Rights Foundation
said the performance was “shameful and inappropriate,” Swank
apologized through a statement by her spokesman. She allegedly fired her
long-term manager Jason Weinberg.
Julio
Iglesias Doesn’t Care?
In 2012, the
68-year-old Spanish serenader Julio Iglesias performed at a concert in Malabo,
Equatorial Guinea, organized by Teodorin Obiang Nguema Manque, the
vice-president of the country and son of its long-running dictator Teodoro
Obiang. Manque had been accused of alleged corruption, including embezzling
state funds to pay for a playboy’s lifestyle. The country is one of the world’s
wealthiest in oil, yet its citizens are some of the poorest on Earth. Where
does the money go? Despite outcries by multiple human rights organizations,
Iglesias didn’t seem to care. “The entire government was there, and the first
ladies of several African nations,” he said, according to The Telegraph. “When
I greet them, I don’t ask them if their husbands are corrupt…I never considered
not going.”
Nelly
Furtado’s Gaddafi Gaffe
Mariah Carey and
Beyonce Knowles aren’t the only divas who have wailed for the Gaddafi clan.
Canadian pop idol Nelly Furtado is on that list as well. In 2007, the
Libyan dictator paid her $1 million bucks to croon for his nearest and
dearest at an Italian resort. Lamenting that it was her first private concert,
she claimed ignorance. Later, after the uprising against Gaddafi’s regime
left thousands of Libyan citizens dead, Furtado announced in 2011 that she was
donating the money to charity.
Come
on, Kanye!
The
often-boastful but media-commanding superstar singer Kanye West earned a
whopping $3 million dollars for his 2013 Labor Day Weekend
gig at the wedding reception of the grandson of Kazakhstan President
Nursultan Nazarbayev. Considered a “brutal killer” ruling a “human
rights wasteland” by the Human Rights Foundation (Rolling Stone Magazine),
Nazarbayev has allegedly tortured and suppressed media members and
others who opposed him during his 25-year dictatorship.
Dennis
Rodman Loves the Despot
Rodman’s antics
have always been an acquired taste, but many did not think it
was entertaining when he made multiple visits to the oppressed country of
North Korea. During his first visit, supreme leader Kim Jong-un taped him
hosting basketball clinics in the capital of Pyongyang. Rodman declared Kim a
friend for life. Two more visits and Rodman thought himself a diplomat,
urging U.S. President Barack Obama to build bridges with the isolated regime.
On his third visit, CNN recorded Rodman in an interview suggesting that
imprisoned American citizen Kenneth Bae was at fault for his long hard-labor
sentence. A public apology followed. In March 2014 a tearful Rodman
said on an ESPN interview, “If you don’t want me to go back there ever
again, I won’t go back.”
Naomi
and the Dirty Rocks
Supermodel Naomi
Campbell received a gift of a blood diamond from Liberia’s former President
Charles Taylor at a 2007 Nelson Mandela charity function. After refusing to
testify at Taylor’s war crimes trial in The Hague in 2010, Campbell was
subpoenaed and took the stand with an attitude, indignant over being
“inconvenienced.” She claimed she had no idea the diamond was from Taylor until
another attendee, actress Mia Farrow, informed her. Farrow took the stand and
said that Campbell told her the source of the gift.
Bad
Choice, Badu!
The most recent
bad choice on this list was by soul and blues singer Erykah Badu. While
cutting a record in South Africa, Badu flew to Swaziland at the request of
a friend who was organizing a birthday party for Swaziland’s King Mswati
III. Labeled by Amnesty International as “Africa’s last remaining absolute
monarchy” (Rolling Stone Magazine), the country starves while Mswati swims in
pools of money. Badu defended herself, saying she “signed up as an artist, not
as a political activist” (Rolling Stone Magazine).
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