Pop culture icon, Rihanna, apologized today to the Islamic community for including scriptures in a song which premiered in an Amazon Prime lingerie show.
She conveyed her baffled embarrassment and apologies on Instagram stories which read, “The use of the song in our project was completely irresponsible! I’ll make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
Her Savage x Fenty show had models dancing in lingerie to Hadith, which were scriptures that recorded Prophet Mohammed’s actions and sayings. The scriptures were part of the 2017 song, Doom by Coucou Chloe.
“I’d like to thank the Muslim community for pointing out a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our Savage x Fenty show,” her posts read. “I would more importantly like to apologize to you for this honest yet careless mistake. We understand that we may have hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and I’m incredibly disheartened by this! I do not play with any kind of disrespect toward God or any religion,” she proceeded. “And therefore the use of the song in our project was completely irresponsible! Moving forward we will make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. Thank you for your forgiveness and understanding.”
Prior to the show’s release, Rihana had a post on her Instagram feed which initially excited fans for the video. It read, “not sorry”: #SAVAGENOTSORRY bih! VOL. 2 of the @savagexfentyshow TOMORROW on @amazonprimevideo.” Talk about irony!
The comment section for the post soon became a gateway for her Muslim fans, particularly, to lash out at her. One fan wrote: “im really upset rihanna 🙁 ive always loved and looked up to you and appreciated your sense of diversity in all your branding. now, i see you put an islamic hadith or prayer in your music for a lingerie show? thats beyond disrespectful and disappointing. im so sad :(”
Coucou Choloe also conveyed her apology on a tweet. ““I want to deeply apologize for the offence caused by the vocal samples used in my song ‘DOOM.’ The song was created using samples from Baile Funk tracks I found online. At the time, I was not aware that these samples used text from an Islamic Hadith.”