Let’s say your father is an evil dictator by day, and a doting sugar daddy at night. Actually, let’s just assume you’re Mutassim-Billah Gaddafi, the fourth son of Libayan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Not only does your close relation to a man of such power and wealth hook you up with a sweet gig—hello, national-security advisor!—but Pops is also generous with footing the bill for the entertainment whenever you want to invite the bros over. According to Rolling Stone, Qaddafi paid Mariah Carey $1 million to perform at a New Year’s Eve party hosted by Mutassim on St. Barts in the Caribbean in 2008. Beyonce, Usher, 50 Cent, and Nelly Furtado have also received huge sums of money in recent years in exchange for looking the other way from Gaddafi’s well-publicized resume of terror and savagery going back several decades.
In the past week, as Gaddafi tries to negoiate terms for leaving Libya without his head ending up on a stick, several of those stars have been shamed into giving the money back, or donating it to charity, including Carey, Beyonce, and Furtado. The latest to issue a statement on the controversy is Usher, with the singer promising that he “will be donating all of my personal proceeds from that event to various human rights organizations.” If that sounds awfully vague, at least he’s doing better than 50 Cent who—as Popdust points out—hasn’t yet commented on the money he received for performing at a Mutassim-involved event at the Venice Film Festival in 2005. Fiddy got rich, but only the Libayans are dyin’ at the moment.