Mariah Carey Apologizes for New Year's Day Qaddafi Performance

With the news of Libyan protests, some singers have been “outed” for accepting money for performances from the Qaddafi clan in Libya. Earlier this week, Nelly Furtado announced she’d be donating the money she’d earned from the dictator, and now, Mariah Carey has announced what she plans to do to rectify the situation.
Carey announced she will record a song for her upcoming album, Save the Day, and donate the proceeds of the song to human rights issues. “I was naïve and unaware of who I was booked to perform for,” Carey said in a statement. “I feel horrible and embarrassed to have participated in this mess. Going forward, this is a lesson for all artists to learn from. We need to be more aware and take more responsibility, regardless of who books our shows. Ultimately we as artists are to be held accountable.
Carey was paid $1 million to sing four songs at a Qaddafi family party in St. Barts on New Year’s Day 2009. Other artists such as Beyonce and Usher have reportedly been hired to sing at previous Qaddafi parties. Beyonce has also said she will be donating the money she earned from her Qaddafi performance.
I know it’s not up to artists to book their own shows, especially huge A-list stars like these ones, but have to wonder why they wouldn’t look into something that involved a family in power in paying $1 million for FOUR songs – seems odd, doesn’t it?
Source: http://blog.starcam.com/post/mariah-carey-apologizes-for-qaddafi-performance.aspx

