M.I.A. and the National Football League are embroiled in an ongoing legal battle 18 months after she flipped the bird during her half-time appearance with Madonna during Super Bowl XLVI on Feb. 5, 2012.
The NFL initially filed its a breach-of-contract suit against M.I.A. in March 2013, demanding she pay $1.5 million, which will go to charity. Last week, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the football league asked for a summary judgment requiring the English-Sri Lankan rapper to pay.
So now, M.I.A., who has certainly been known to take on her opponents before, has decided she will wage a one-woman campaign against the NFL. “She is going to go public with an explanation of how ridiculous it was for the NFL and its fans to devote such furor to this incident, while ignoring the genocide occurring in her home country and several other countries, topics she frequently speaks to,” her attorney Howard King told THR.
That is crazy and is one of the weakest red herrings we”ve ever seen tossed. So she wants the NFL, the NATIONAL Football League to take a stand on the atrocities going on in her home country. Hmmm. Not to make any light at all of the horrible things that are going on there and elsewhere, but I”m sure the NFL will get on that right after Commissioner Roger Goodell finishes his position paper on North Korea.
Furthermore, M.I.A. is calling the league”s bluff when it claims she has damaged its image. “Of course, the NFL’s claimed reputation for wholesomeness is hilarious,” King continues, “in light of the weekly felonies committed by its stars, the bounties placed by coaches on opposing players, the homophobic and racist comments uttered by its players, the complete disregard for the health of players and the premature deaths that have resulted from same, and the raping of public entities ready to sacrifice public funds to attract teams.”
Got to side with her on this one. But if M.I.A. found the NFL so repugnant, why did she agree to play with Madonna?
The fact that the NFL is trying to wring $1.5 million out of M.I.A., even if it is going to charity, for flipping the bird is insane, but M.I.A. taking the NFL on for its non-stand on international civil rights is equally ridiculous.
“Matangi,” M.I.A.’s much-delayed new album (following her feud with her label, Interscope), comes out Nov. 5.