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View Full Version : Kirkorov in public insult shame!!!


spyretto
17-08-2004, 17:39
I'm in total shock!! I even made a topic about it!


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/chitribts/20040816/ts_chicagotrib/superstarsuncivilbehavioriscriminal

Pop stars are no strangers to bad behavior. Smashed guitars, ruined hotel rooms--such misdeeds often are chuckled over later, written up in the tabloids, perhaps listed on invoices for damage. Not so in Russia, where the public expects its performers to remember that they walk in Tchaikovsky's footsteps.

Thus when pop superstar Philip Kirkorov insulted a reporter from a small regional newspaper at a news conference--calling her an unprintable name, mocking her southern accent, telling her he was "tired of you, irritated by your pink blouse, your [breasts] and your microphone"--much of the nation rose to her defense.


Television and radio stations announced they would no longer play Kirkorov's music. Homemakers started a campaign to have him barred from Rostov-on-Don, the idyllic southern town where 34-year-old Irina Aroyan writes for the local weekly. Hundreds of letters and phone calls of support flooded in to her desk, most of them wondering how a Russian man could sully the honor of a woman.


"The eternal Russia, the Russia of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is alive and well," Russian Information Agency political analyst Dmitri Kosyrev wrote last week after a poll showed the popularity of Kirkorov, often known as the "King of Russian Pop," had plunged by 37 percentage points since the May 20 news conference.


Last week, a district court judge found Kirkorov, 37, guilty of public insult, which is a criminal offense, and fined him $2,000.


Aroyan said it was a victory for the entire Russian justice system. "Russia is actually becoming a civilized country after all," she said after Judge Irina Vladimirova found that the artist "deliberately insulted her, using foul language."


Kirkorov's lawyer, Alexander Korobchansky, said the musician would appeal. "No one in the Russian Federation sued a famous soccer player when he used the same foul language in front of TV cameras," he said. "Philip Kirkorov behaved indecently. No one is arguing with that. But he should be held civilly liable, not guilty of a criminal offense."


Kirkorov, known for his sequined outfits and schmaltzy love songs, may well be Russia's most popular male pop star.


The trouble started when Aroyan, a relatively inexperienced reporter who does not regularly cover the entertainment industry, asked Kirkorov why he seemed to do so many remakes of previously recorded material. Was there a lack of good new composers?


Kirkorov demanded to know what remakes she was talking about, then ordered her to leave when, flustered, she couldn't remember any.


"One should come to a pop star's press conference prepared," he said.


As Aroyan gathered her things and said "goodbye," Kirkorov taunted her in what many described as a mockery of a southern Russian accent. Then he uttered a word for female genitalia. Outside, Kirkorov's bodyguards grabbed Aroyan, held her wrists behind her back, covered her mouth and seized her camera's memory card.


Since then, the case of the reporter and the pop star has been regular fare in the tabloids and on TV. Letters have come in from Russians living as far away as Australia and Canada.


"So many people, poor people, ordinary people, called our newspaper and gave their support," Aroyan said in an interview.


Kirkorov's managers have accused Aroyan of trying to provoke a scene to further her career. The artist regarded the reporter as unprepared and unprofessional, said his spokesman, Nikolai Stepanov.


In a confrontation on a television talk show, the pop star and the journalist met by satellite linkup. Aroyan cried; Kirkorov was defensive.


"The only thing that I reproach myself for is the fact that I lost control," he said.





Kirkorov issued a public apology to his fans, but not to Aroyan. This point has seemed to play on the public's unease with the post-Soviet nouveau riche; many complain that public civility largely disappeared with communism.

Talking at a sidewalk cafe one evening last week, Aroyan was repeatedly interrupted by well-wishers. "With all our hearts and all our souls, we stand up for you," one young man said from the next table.

Kirkorov, meanwhile, has renamed his tour "King of the Remakes" and has come out with a new CD single with remixes of the heated news conference sound bites put to music and spun by famous disc jockeys

ypsidan04
18-08-2004, 02:47
Sounds like the bullshit that happened to the Dixie Chicks over here. Not that I like the Dixie Chicks, but I'm glad that there is a such thing as a Southern US Democrat. :)

Unplugged
18-08-2004, 10:37
I don't see what all the fuss is about.

And I don't see why "I'm tired of your stupid pink blouse, breasts and microphone" is so 'shocking'. There's way worse press conferences with popstars (ex: Liam Gallagher :rolleyes: )

Kate
18-08-2004, 10:56
I don't see what all the fuss is about. Neither do I. Kirkorov is rude, but arn't we all when we lose control? We all have moments like that. No one sues the men on the fish market. :rolleyes: Kirkorov is a crappy singer, has a crappy style, but it's not a reason to sue to guy. Anyway, I think it's just one huge publicity stunt for him. :p