Jennifer Lopez gave a special concert Saturday for Turkmenistani dictator Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, wishing the autocrat the “very, very happiest birthday.” Now she’s very, very sorry she took $1 million for the show.
J.Lo is hardly the first performer to go on the dictator circuit. Sting took $2 million to play for Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov in 2006. Mariah Carey took $1 million to play four songs for Moammar Khadafy’s family on New Year’s Eve in 2008. Usher and Beyoncé followed suit the very next year.
Sure, Karimov boiled someone alive, and the Khadafys sponsored terrorist attacks on American civilians. But celebs are a forgiving lot. Who can forget the three-way love affair carried on by then-Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez with actor Sean Penn and director Oliver Stone?
We have their travels on our mind thanks to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Snowden has been singing for China and Russia vis-a-vis the classified info he’s been releasing. The latest reports say this champion of personal liberty is now looking for the Big Bear’s furry embrace — having applied for asylum to 15 countries, including Russia.
So forget loneliness. In whichever authoritarian regime he ends up, Snowden can look forward to quite the party.
J.Lo will sing.
Usher will dance.
Sting will play guitar.
And Oliver Stone will film it all — so that someday, when the citizens of that benighted nation are free, they might know who profited from their misery.