Nelly Furtado Plans To Donate $1 Million From Gaddafi Performance To Charity
Nelly Furtado is just one of many stars who were paid handsomely to perform for Libya leader Moammar Gaddafi in recent years, but the singer is now reportedly planning to donate that money in light of that nation's uprising.
Furtado volunteered information about her upcoming donation on her official Twitter account. "In 2007, I received 1million$ from the Qaddafi clan to perform a 45 min Show for guests at a hotel in Italy," she wrote. "I am going to donate the $."
As Rolling Stone is reporting, several artists have accepted massive sums of money to perform for Gaddafi and his family in recent years. In 2008, R & B stars Beyoncé and Usher are said to have performed at a New Year's Eve party for Gaddafi's son Muatassim -- Libya's national security adviser -- on the Caribbean island of St. Barts, while veteran pop diva Mariah Carey accepted $1 million to sing at a previous New Year's bash. In 2005, 50 Cent gave a performance before Muatassim at a film festival.
Music industry experts say the pressure is high for other artists who performed for Gaddafi to follow suit. "When I saw Beyoncé and Usher and whoever else was out partying with these Libyan criminals...these are people who have stolen tens of billions of dollars from their nation...for very, very wealthy American and British pop stars to take part in this kind of thing makes me want to puke," Howie Klein, former president of Reprise Records, tells Rolling Stone. But Dennis Arfa, an agent for Metallica, Billy Joel and Rod Stewart, felt differently. "Not every artist is a humanitarian," he said. "In more cases than not, for people, greed rules."
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First Posted: 02/28/11 03:13 PM ET Updated: 05/25/11 07:35 PM ET