Singer Jennifer Lopez has assured human rights activists and concerned members of the public that she plans to entertain oppressive regimes far less frequently, and intends to keep private concerts for military dictatorships down to a minimum.
The recent Birthday concert for President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov of Turkmenistan who is presently ranked 6 in the Sunday Times top 100 despots list has caused a wave of negative publicity for the singer causing her to announce that she will only be performing such concerts ‘sometimes’.
“Every day I ask myself if I’ve sung Happy Birthday to any dictators. If I have then my next question has to be ‘have I sung Happy Birthday to any dictators today?’ If I have and another one books me for later on in the afternoon you can rest assured I’m going to say ‘ no way jose, you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow. I need to be able to look at my face in the mirror and say ‘you’re awesome Jennifer’.”
Indeed the forthcoming world tour which involves private concerts for the rulers of North Korea, Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe will all be separated by series of nice concerts on peoples communes in New Zealand.
Ms Lopez’s management team have been at pains to point out that for rulers with a less than perfect human rights record, songs will also be sung more quickly than usual, with less dancing involved than at many of her concerts. Her agent told us “There’s even a slim chance she might not play an encore in some cases. It’s the only way these totalitarian despots will get the message.”
