Just a few days after being dropped from a U.S. Navy-sponsored Freedom Live concert in Washington, D.C., and his headlining gig at the Gretna Heritage Music Festival in Louisiana, CeeLo Green has recently been removed from the lineup of an Alabama music festival.
Alabama's BayFest Music Festival announced Monday, Sept. 8, that Green's Oct. 4 performance at the event was cancelled due to his shameful comments about rape last month.
"In light of the recent comments attributed to CeeLo Green that are contrary to the beliefs and conscience of BayFest Music Festival, Mr. Green's performance at the 2014 BayFest Music Festival on Oct. 4 has been cancelled," the festival said in a statement, Billboard reported.
BayFest Music Festival officials did not see a lot of people writing letters calling for the removal of the 40-year-old R&B singer from the event's lineup, but president and CEO Bobby Bostwick said that was not the deciding factor, WKRG-TV reported.
"When all is said and done, his comments are just not what we want associated with us," Bostwick said.
Bostwick revealed that that their contract with the former "The Voice" coach was over the $100,000, but he refused to discuss whether or not the singer was paid up front. He also acknowledged that the cancellation of Green's performance is an expensive shift for the event, noting that there's still a lot of things to be left up to the lawyers.
"Even if we don't have to pay CeeLo anything in the end result, we got to spend a lot of money re-doing commercials at the last minute," added Bostwick. With an impact of between $34-38 million dollars, he is pretty confident that festival's bold decision will not massively affect the bottom line too much.
"It's just a turmoil on our 20th anniversary, we didn't need that. And really I don't want to be associated, neither does our board of directors, with an act that just kind of blatantly said what he apparently said," Bostwick explained of their decision to cut Green from the event.
On Aug. 31, Green took to Twitter to make an attempt to define what rape is, two days after pleading no contest for charges that he furnished ecstasy to a woman during a 2012 dinner in Los Angeles.
"If someone is passed out they're not even WITH you consciously! so WITH Implies consent," he tweeted, according to BuzzFeed, adding, "People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!"
The said woman had initially filed a police report accusing Green of sexual assault, but prosecutors said there was no enough evidence to charge the singer with rape of an intoxicated person, so the felony sexual assault charge was rejected, according to Reuters.
