Entertainers Now Realize Taking Money From Khadafi Was a Bad Thing?

It only takes a revolution and the deaths of thousands of Libyans at the hands of Mumar Khadafi's loyalists and mercenaries to get some Hollywood types to realize that taking money to perform for Khadafi and his family was a bad thing?

Carey accepted $1 million to perform for Qaddafi's son, Muatassim, Libya's national-security adviser, at a lavish New Year's Eve party on the Caribbean island of St. Barts in 2008; Beyoncé and Usher performed for an undisclosed sum on the island the following year. 50 Cent gave a performance before Muatassim at a 2005 film festival in Venice. Managers for Usher, 50 Cent and Carey declined comment, and Beyoncé's management, run by her father, Mathew Knowles, did not return phone calls. "They've done it for tons of artists," says a music-business source, referring to Muatassim's parties, which are often jammed with supermodels. "Those guys are all over the world."

Qaddafi’s record of brutality and terrorism during his 40-year reign is well-documented – his regime was linked to a 1986 Berlin disco bombing, causing the deaths of two American soldiers, and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270. Late last month, Libya’s former justice minister told a Swedish newspaper that Qaddafi himself ordered the Pan Am bombing. Muatassim’s brother Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi recently warned Libyan protesters on state television to abandon the streets or face "rivers of blood."

All these entertainers knew full well that Khadafi was linked to terrorism, including the murder of 270 people in the Pan Am 103 bombing, and yet they saw a paycheck at the end of the day and took it.

They could have skipped the Khadafi entertainment parties without suffering any kind of repercussion on their careers, but instead took money from a totalitarian dictator.

Now, years later, they're facing calls to donate the money, and some are stepping forward to attempt to make amends. Nelly Furtado is saying that she's going to donate money since she performed for Khadafi and his clan in Italy and received $1 million for the 45 minute show.

They should never have taken the money in the first place, but the least they can do now is make sure that the money goes to humanitarian relief to assist those who are now being displaced by the fighting in Libya.

Now, some are going to defend these entertainers as not knowing who they were going to be performing for and that they find out about who was behind the concerts after the fact. I'm not sure that excuse quite cuts it - not when there are indications that at least some of those entertainers knew full well who was in the crowd and who was paying for the concerts.