No, not a $1m fine for a musical outburst at some joyless, alcohol-free function, Ms Furtado unable to express the magnificence of the event except by loosening her vocal chords: ‘The hills are alive, with the sound of music..’
No. Furtado is a professional singer and $1 million was the fee for the gig.
Now, horrified at Gaddafi, she is giving the money to charity.
What I think needs to be asked of Furtado, and indeed of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and any other of Muammar’s pals who is now appalled at the man’s actions, is ‘What have you seen recently in Gaddafi’s behaviour which you couldn’t have guessed before?’
I find myself quite tolerant of attempts to bring Gaddafi in from the cold, and receiving him as if he were a normal, worthwhile leader. That is Realpolitik and for a while it seemed to have worked. I am equally tolerant that Nelly Furtado (named Nelly Kim Furtado after a Soviet gymnast – there’s an interesting fact), whose profession is to sing for money, should do so at Gaddafi’s party. She was not there to lend her approval to his governmental style, she was there because he was paying $1 million.
So let’s drop the handwringing ‘if only I’d known’ shtick. Everyone knew what sort of person he was; it was just convenient to do business with him.
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