Usher said on Friday he’s “sincerely troubled” to learn he appeared at a concert in St. Bart’s linked to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s family and plans donate his concert fee to human rights organizations.
Earlier this week, Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Nelly Furtado all renounced their performances at private concerts later revealed to be linked to the family of Qaddafi, whose country is revolting against him and who faces an investigation for possible war crimes.
All the singers have promised to give their fees to charity or said they have already done so.
Photo: Bloomberg
Usher did not perform but was paid to appear at the private concert featuring Beyonce in 2009.
“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, “ he said in a statement. “I will be donating all of my personal proceeds from that event to various human rights organizations.”
The statement said Usher made a contribution on Friday to Amnesty International, which the organization confirmed. The group said Usher requested the donation amount be private.
Since the uprising in Libya, attention has focused on entertainers paid by the Qaddafi family for private concerts. Furtado acknowledged getting US$1 million, which she promised to give to charity. Beyonce said she donated her fees to Haiti quake relief once she discovered the Qaddafi link.
Carey said she was unaware of whom she was performing for and “embarrassed.” She announced she will donate royalties for the song Save the Day, which she has written for her upcoming album, to charities that promote human-rights awareness.
Though those celebrities seem eager to cut ties with Qaddafi, Sean Penn isn’t abandoning his old buddy Hugo Chavez. The actor thanked the Venezuelan president on Saturday for supporting Penn’s relief organization in Haiti, saying the aid helped humanitarian work distributing medicines.
Chavez met Penn at the presidential palace and praised the actor’s efforts with his J/P Haitian Relief Organization, which was founded in response to the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti last year.
The Oscar-winning actor noted that in addition to Venezuela’s financial help, his organization has also received support from the US military.
Penn called that ironic, adding: “We hope that this kind of collaboration can be an example for future approaches to many other issues” — in spite of limited US-Venezuelan diplomatic contacts.
Penn has met four times with Chavez in recent years. Chavez has praised the actor for his critical stance toward US foreign policy.
Moving north, Grammy-winning US pop singer Christina Aguilera was arrested in Hollywood for being intoxicated and held overnight “for her well-being,” police said on Tuesday last week.
The singer was booked for public intoxication after her boyfriend’s car was stopped and he was arrested for alleged drunk driving, said a local sheriff’s department spokesman, Steve Whitmore.
The car, in which Aguilera was allegedly riding, was stopped at around 2:45am near a west Hollywood night club, and Aguilera was taken into the local sheriff’s office.
She was released around 7:30am, said the spokesman, adding the star will not have to make a court appearance. Her boyfriend, Matthew Rutler, was booked and his bail was at US$5,000, he said.
Whitmore said she was detained under a rule allowing police, “when people are incapacitated, and they cannot fend for themselves, [to] take them into custody but for the express purpose of their safety, not for any criminal intent.”
She was not required to post bail, he said. “But there is a record of this, meaning that she will have a misdemeanor arrest for public intoxication on her record. But there will be no prosecution,” he added.
In other road safety news from California, actor David Arquette’s Cadillac crashed head-on with another vehicle in Beverly Hills on Friday, but the actor was not seriously hurt.
Arquette, 39, was “OK” after the crash, and was on his way to being treated, publicist Cindy Guagenti told reporters in an e-mail.
“I got into a car accident but I’m fine. Luckily I have dragon’s blood running through my veins,” Arquette quipped on his Twitter account about two hours after the accident.
Arquette apparently deleted that Tweet. It did not appear on his page later Friday night, but several others referring to the crash did.
“Remember to wear your seatbelt — wish I was,” he said in one.
Another read: “It was a miracle the woman I hit was uninjured — Thank God!”
Arquette said that he was headed to the airport to catch a plane to Las Vegas for a friend’s restaurant opening at the time of the crash on Doheny Drive just north of Santa Monica Boulevard along the West Hollywood and Beverly Hills city limits.
Arquette and the other driver were the only two people involved, Beverly Hills police and fire officials said.
Both were taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with injuries that were not considered serious.
Arquette, who has spoken publicly about his struggles with substance abuse, said last week on The Oprah Winfrey Show that he has been sober since Dec. 30. He wrote on Friday that he turned down drugs at the hospital after the crash.
“Refused all pain medication — may the record state — still sober!” he Tweeted.— AGENCIES
A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one — shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20 percent. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of growing understanding about how many factors influence brain health as we age — and what we can do about it. “It’s a very robust finding,” said lead researcher Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University. And “women seem to benefit more,” important as they’re at higher risk of
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS