American actress and singer Jennifer Lopez has had a long and successful career in show business. She is widely regarded as a talented performer and businesswoman who established herself as the highest-paid Hispanic actress in Hollywood.

However, she has also been involved in a number of controversies throughout her career. She once faced accusations from Human Rights groups for performing “serenading crooks and dictators” from Russia and a number of former Soviet republics.

Back in 2013, Jennifer Lopez landed in trouble when Human Rights Foundation president Thor Halvorssen issued a statement to the press that read, “J.Lo has repeatedly mingled with and entertained some of the world’s worst thugs and their cronies. The ‘Jenny-from-the-block-who-doesn’t-Google’ clarification may be credible in one instance, but it beggars belief in light of a pattern of repeated behaviour.”

It all started when Jennifer Lopez performed at a birthday party for Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, whom the Human Rights Foundation accuses of leading one of the world’s most repressive administrations in his Central Asian country.

J.Lo’s publicist Mark Young responded to press reports after the singer’s performance, saying, “Had there been knowledge of human rights issues of any kind, Jennifer would not have attended.” Thor Halvorssen retaliated by saying, “What those covering this story have missed is that J.Lo and her management have misled her fans and the public.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a Human Rights Foundation probe found that in July 2011, Uzbek industrialist Azam Aslamov paid Jennifer Lopez $1 million to sing at his son’s wedding. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov was a guest at the wedding. Not just that, Lopez was also paid $1.4 million to perform at the birthday celebration of allegedly corrupt Russian businessman Telman Ismailov in Moscow, according to Halvorssen.

Lopez was asked in September 2012 by the government of Azerbaijan to sing at a FIFA football event for a reported $2.5 million, according to HRF. According to the foundation, Lopez’s operatives met with the dictator’s wife in Baku and began negotiating a plan to host a music festival in Azerbaijan with the Los Angeles-based Creative Artists Agency. The event was initially scheduled for September 2013 but has been rescheduled until 2014.

Jennifer Lopez completed a leg of her international tour in Belarus, Europe’s last remaining dictatorship, in October 2012. Details about her time in Minsk and her engagements are not public record, and the Lopez team has not replied to demands for comment. Lopez returned to Russia in November 2012, where she was set to sing happy birthday to Alexander Yolkin, a Russian bureaucrat accused of corruption. Yolkin was detained the day before Lopez’s birthday party performance. According to Russian media, the estimated $2 million paid to Lopez was the result of kickbacks and bribery. According to HRF, it is unknown whether Lopez repaid the fee for the cancelled performance.

The Human Rights Foundation also questioned Lopez’s previous claims that her performance in Turkmenistan for the dictator and his family was a “last-minute request” and that the event “was not a government-sponsored event or political in nature.” Lopez’s team’s claim is disputed by both Turkmenistan media coverage of the event and the fact that the event’s $2.5 million cash cost was paid in advance by a Chinese company, the China National Petroleum Corporation.

The Human Rights Foundation, which has requested that Jennifer Lopez repay the money she was paid to appear in Turkmenistan, has also criticised Hilary Swank’s visit to Chechnya and Julio Iglesias’ concert in Equatorial Guinea, which has one of Africa’s most restrictive regimes.

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The post When Jennifer Lopez Faced Massive Backlash For Earning $10 Million After Performing At ‘World’s Worst Thugs & Their Cronies’ appeared first on Koimoi.