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Artist News
Usher to pay his Gaddafi fee to human rights charities
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 7 March 2011
Usher is the latest pop star to hand over to charity money he earned playing for the Gaddafi family at one of their New Year parties on the island of St Barts.
He was one of a number of pop stars revealed by Rolling Stone to have played at a Gaddafi clan party in recent years, 2009 in Usher’s case. Having taken the Libyan dictator’s cash has become a bit controversial of late now that the troubled African leader is setting his army on his own people. In a statement, Usher said this weekend: “I am sincerely troubled to learn about the circumstances surrounding the Nikki Beach St Bart’s event that took place on New Year’s Eve 2009. I will be donating all of my personal proceeds from that event to various human rights organisations”.
Nelly Furtado was the first pop star to have performed at a Gaddafi party to announce she would give the proceeds to charity, though Beyonce subsequently said she’d already given her fee to a charitable cause, adding that she had done so as soon as she discovered who she had played for, sometime before the current conflict in Libya.
Mariah Carey also expressed embarrassment about unknowingly playing for the Gaddafi clan and pledged to be more careful about accepting private party bookings in the future, though her people were rather cagey about what would happen to the fee Carey was paid.
