The Darey Concert: Paying Millions For The Presence Of A Porn Star - By Wale Odunsi
Okay, I hardly comment on entertainment and showbiz news. I prefer to stay on the national issues/political terrain which are my jurisdiction. However, I could not hold back the temptation to do a piece on Darey’s ‘Love Like A Movie’ concert.
See the rest after the cut...No doubt, the LLAM held in Lagos was superb; star-studded, proper management, lights, sounds et al. In fact not a few have adjudged the show the best of its type in recent years. The ovation and positive review was not unexpected considering the artiste involved. Dude is good-looking, knows his onions, greatly talented and business oriented.
About a week to the D-day,
news went viral that renowned Reality TV girl, Kim Kardashian, will be in the country
as a co-host of the event. At 8:20pm of Saturday, February 16, 2013, she flew
in.
Trust Nigerian blogs, before
her arrival, no other news existed. Even major news tabloids caught the bug. At
least for three straight days, it was Kim this, Kim that.
I have no beef about
that. I am certain the organizers splashed plenty six or seven figures that
sorta hype. And for the publicists, heavens once again beamed a wide grin at
them; they must have smiled to the banks, perhaps their closets, depending on
where they keep their monies.
After every every, Kanye
West's heartrob and baby-mama to be, left the shores of Naija just when the
concert was about to start. Initially I thought she developed flu and had to quickly
jet out. Soon after, I learnt she was actually invited to do what I like to tag
‘Cameo’ (a short appearance by a popular figure in a music video).
At the Eko Hotels venue,
the Kim simply posed for pictures with some of our local and a few international
champions who clearly were star-struck; you could see it in their eyes and on
their foreheads. I even spotted the wife of former Cross River governor, Onari
Duke with her.
LLAM number one guest was
kind enough to open the show, spending a total forty seconds on stage. That was
it…Chikena! In all, she was there for three-quarter of sixty minutes. By 10:20pm
Sunday night, she was aboard a plane back home.
The major (if not only)
flaw of that outing was the presence of Kim. If it is true that she was paid hundreds
of thousands of Benjamins (aka US Dollars), it would indeed be appalling. We are talking about someone who shot her way
to the limelight via the now infamous sex-tape which anyone can still download
on the internet for free! So for the sake of money, we’ve sent our morals,
decency and integrity on vacation.
Just few weeks ago, Miss
Kardashian-West was paid $200,000 for a trip to Ivory Coast. She then proceeded
to donate a meager $2,000 to a local orphanage, an amount less than one percent
of her total financial terms (including flight, hotel and security charge).
Obviously Darey and his
team wanted a name that would pull the crowd out of their homes. Question: Was that
the best they could come up with? Whatever happened to female celebs known for their
and hard work and larger than life persona: Alicia Keys, India Arie, Adele among many
others.
As
a humanitarian, it is sheer stupidity to think that a clique forming big boys would
dole out all that money for below-an-hour attendance of an actress whose only
movie to her credit is a pornographic motion picture. It would have made more
sense if she stayed throughout the event, to at least justify the huge amount
spend on her appearance.
Charles
Novia rightly noted and I wish to re-echo his statement: There was absolutely no
need for Kim Kardashian at Darey’s concert.
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