More like this
Naked Dallas video gets Erykah Badu probation
R&B singer fined $500 and put on probation for stripping off at site of JFK’s assassination
The American R&B singer Erykah Badu has been fined $500 and ordered to serve six months' probation by a court in Dallas, Texas for stripping naked in a video filmed at the scene of President John F Kennedy's assassination.
Badu, a Grammy award-winner, is filmed walking through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, gradually shedding her clothes as passers-by look on bemused. After five minutes, totally naked, she throws herself to the ground, pretending to have been shot.
She released the video earlier this year to accompany her song Window Seat, an R&B hit in March. The number opens with radio commentary from the day of JFK's shooting - November 22, 1963.
Badu, a native of Dallas, was charged with disorderly conduct after some of the passers-by who saw her stripping complained to police. Many of them were tourists visiting the site of Kennedy's assassination.
Badu explained to fans via Twitter that her video was a declaration against "groupthink". She also said she was more concerned about police interrupting the filming than about appearing nude in public. ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
it is hard to judge the severity of this crime without proper evidence- can we get this footage displayed on the BBC and get our licence tax's worth? this is a serious issue, we need more in-depth coverage of this type of crime, the BBC claims to have world coverage, where is the justice of it all?
I remember showing up naked (along with some attractive friends) to a Halloween party. When people asked where our costumes were, my girlfriend said, "we're a nudist colony. Amidst people with fake hatchets protruding from their heads and an ocean of fake blood, it was clear that the only costume that wasn't a costume was the most frightening of all. It was a joke on our part, but nobody was laughing. It certainly illustrated to me how perverted our priorities are when violent images are acceptable, but the ultimate image of vulnerability is not. Shame on us.
Have the rules changed? This performance was used commercially and included people who apparently were included without their consent. As I recall from doing commercial photography, that can be a violation of a person's right of privacy and subject to a lawsuit. Particularly since the subject matter can be quite offensive to some people.
Stripping in public is a minor offence compared to recording such bland whining and calling it R&B. For that she should be shot.
I wonder if Tracey Emin would call it art?