Beyonce Donated Gadhafi Money to Haiti Relief
Second celebrity gave away money earned for performance for Gadhafi family.
March 2, 2011 -- The hefty paycheck superstar singer Beyonce Knowles reportedly earned for performing for Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi's son was donated to a Haiti earthquake relief fund "over a year ago," the pop star's publicist said today.
"All monies paid to Beyoncé for her performance at a private party at Nikki Beach St. Barts on New Year's Eve 2009, including the commissions paid to her booking agency, were donated to the earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, over a year ago," Beyonce spokesperson Yvette Noel-Schure said in a statement to ABC News. "Once it became known that the third party promoter was linked to the [Gadhafi] family, the decision was made to put that payment to a good cause."
The announcement was made a day after fellow singer Nelly Furtado told fans that she was donating the $1 million she had been paid for performing for the "Gadhafi clan" at an Italian hotel in 2007, and fans began calling for other celebrities to do the same.
"It is absolutely disgraceful that Usher and Beyonce would agree to perform for Gadhafi's sons no matter how much money they were offered," one commenter wrote on an ABC News message board following the initial report.
"Beyonce, Usher and Mariah Carey should give the money they made from these performances to the American families who had loved ones on that flight," another said, apparently referring to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am flight 103 to which Gadhafi has been personally linked.
According to leaked U.S. State Department documents, Beyonce was part of a $1 million bash thrown by Gadhafi's son, Mutassim, on New Years Eve 2009 on St. Barts island in the Caribbean that also featured a performance by Usher and other unnamed musicians. The year before, Mariah Carey had been paid $1 million to perform at the same party for Mutassim, according to the documents.
Representatives for Usher and Carey -- along with several other celebrities who were spotted at the parties but did not perform -- have not responded to multiple requests for comment for this report.
Video of the New Year's 2009 party, shot by a party-goer and obtained by ABC News, shows an intimate affair with Beyonce singing several songs just feet away from attendees.
CLICK HERE to go inside Mutassim's New Years Eve 2009 party.
Wikileaks: Some Libyans 'Embarrassed' By Gadhafi Son's Behavior
Despite the heavy celebrity attendance, "Mutassim seemed to be surprised by the fact that his [2010] party was photographed and the focus of international media attention," a U.S. official said in a 2010 State Department cable posted on the website Wikileaks. "His carousing and extravagance angered some [Libyan] locals, who viewed his activities as impious and embarrassing to the nation."
But if the lavish soiree was embarrassing to some, other international news coverage the family received just a few days before was worse. Then, one of Mutassim's seven brothers, Hannibal, allegedly physically abused his wife, who was later told to tell investigators she had been injured in an "accident," a U.S. official said in a leaked cable.
Hannibal and another brother, Saadi, have "checkered histories of unseemly behavior and public scuffles with authorities in Europe and elsewhere," the official said. According to the same document, another of Gadhafi's sons, Saif al-Arab, described as a "ne'er-do-well," lives in Munich where he "pursues ill-defined business interests and spends much time partying."
"The German Ambassador has expressed concern to us that it is only a matter of time before there is an incident involving him," the official said.
Some of Gadhafi's sons brought so much negative attention to the family that the Libyan dictator assigned a high government official to play the role of a "minder of the more troublesome [Gadhafi] offspring," according to the documents. After an incident in which Saadi disobeyed his father's orders and traveled to Rome, Italy, that minder was removed and Gadhafi's daughter, Aisha, reportedly filled the void.
The Wikileaks disclosures are not news, however, to the Libyan people, who have been well aware of the exploits of the Gadhafi children for years, according to Mansour El-Kikhia, chairman of the department of political science and geography at the University of Texas at San Antonio and author of "Libya's Qaddafi: The Politics of Contradiction".
"We have been talking about what they do, how spoiled they are, how much they abuse their position, how much they manipulated the system to serve themselves," El-Kikhia told ABC News.
