One of her former relationships coined the term “Bennifer.” But Jennifer Lopez’s latest pairing might be called “Turkmennifer.”
The American pop star is getting tons of flack over her appearance Saturday at a Caspian Sea resort in Turkmenistan to celebrate the 56th birthday of the country’s president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.
Turkmenistan is regarded as having one of the worst human rights records in the world, and the country suppresses political opposition and heavily controls media outlets. It also discriminates against non-Turkmen ethnic minorities such as Russians and Uzbeks.
Lopez’s performance for the president’s birthday included her singing “Happy Birthday” to him while she was clad in traditional Turkmen dress. Her wet kiss of performance was reminiscent of the appearance Hillary Swank made at the birthday celebration for the leader of Chechnya and the performances Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Usher have made before the Qaddafis.
In a statement issued Sunday, Lopez’s publicist said the pop star was sorry and didn’t know who she was performing for.
“The event was vetted by her representatives, had there been knowledge of human rights issues of any kind, Jennifer would not have attended,” the statement said, explaining that the underlying purpose of the event was for employees of the China National Petroleum Corp. in the country, who asked her at the last minute to sing to Berdymukhamedov, the birthday boy.
OK, on a side note, Lopez should probably understand that the China National Petroleum Corp. is the state-owned petroleum company of the People’s Republic of China. So if she was singing for them, she was essentially singing for the Chinese government, and that’s a whole other list of issues to consider.
But in any case, it’s hard to believe Lopez could not have easily discovered the Turkmenistan government’s history of human rights abuses. Hey, Jenny, it’s called Google.