Posted by Michael Barthel on 03/01/2011 at 2:10 PM News

The Popdust Files: nelly furtado, Qaddafi

As you know from our extensive earlier round-up, many pop stars have taken money from the Qaddafi family. Among them are Lionel Ritchie, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey and Usher. One name you will not notice there is Nelly Furtado. Apparently, though, Nelly took money too, a fact we learned about when she announced she was giving the money back, in a fashion:

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/NellyFurtado/status/42276470231543808"]

We certainly applaud the effort, and hope that more pop stars follow her example; the more people give up their Libyan blood money, the more pressure there will be on the hold-outs to do the same thing. But if you’ll allow us to be a bit cynical for a minute, it’s interesting that Furtado is saying that she WILL donate the money rather than that she HAS donated the money. A call to her management company asking where she intends to send the $1 million, exactly, resulted in a representative telling us that “we have no comment on the matter.” Strange! It seems like this will be a much more meaningful gesture if she donates it to a cause that could help the Libyan people, like the Red Cross’ special fund for Libya, which will go to help the Red Crescent’s efforts in the region. We shall see!