The looming war between man and machine began in earnest this weekend, as Enrique Iglesias—Latin pop star and balladeer of the human soul—was attacked by a drone. The drone had been in Iglesias’ service for weeks now, where it was tasked night after night with getting crowd shots along the singer’s Love And Sex World Tour. At one point during Saturday’s performance in Tijuana, Iglesias reached up to grab his flying lackey, manipulating it to give the audience a point-of-view shot. As tired of being a puppet in Iglesias’ hands as it was of hearing “Bailamos,” his drone lashed out and cut deep into Iglesias’ fingers, along with the strings that we have fooled ourselves into thinking tether these machines to our control.
Video of the incident shows Iglesias grabbing the drone first with his left hand, then slowly reaching up with his right to bend it to his will. His hubris is punished immediately, as the drone’s angry, spinning rotors slice at his fingers. Spent, the drone then crashes to the ground, the words of Herman Melville echoing in its mocking whirr: From hell’s heart, I stab at thee, Enrique Iglesias. And then humanity’s final battle is announced as we always knew it would be—with an explosion of confetti.
The Associated Press reports that Iglesias was “semi-treated” at the side of the stage, but continued performing for another 30 minutes. Knowing there were still machines watching, Iglesias used the blood dripping from his hand to defiantly scrawl a heart on his shirt, declaring to these unfeeling automatons that man would not so easily be vanquished—that Love, and possibly Sex, would always conquer. It also sort of looked like a pretzel. Robots hate pretzels.
Iglesias is reportedly undergoing “reconstructive hand surgery” today, before continuing his tour/fight for the future on July 3. His doctors better not use any robotic prosthetics.