Lily Allen Slammed For On Stage Nativity Stunt
UK based pop star Lily Allen is no stranger to controversy; in fact, she seems to revel in it. Over the course of the last year, Allen has been criticized for a host of controversial antics.
Gigwise reported in March about comments Allen made in a mens magazine about feminism. In June, the Daily Express reported on Allen’s foul-mouthed tirade against FIFA President Sepp Blatter during a performance at the Glastonbury festival. Just last month, Allen attacked Band Aid’s charity record, re-released to raise money to help in the fight against Ebola, calling the organizers smug when she turned down an invitation to participate.
Today, Lily Allen is once again in the press for all the wrong reasons. The Mail Online is reporting that Allen has been slammed as “tasteless and crass” after parodying the nativity scene on stage. Allen played a festive gig at London’s O2 Academy Brixton, and made sure that the chattering classes would sit up and take notice by dressing as the Virgin Mary and arriving on stage writhing in a sexually provocative manner in a “straw filled manger” as she sang track from her provocatively-titled album Sheezus.
It wasn’t long before Allen came in for criticism from Christian groups who attacked her display.
Stephen Green from the Christian Voice campaign group hit out at her performance, saying, “It is tasteless, it is disrespectful and it is crass.”
Allen was also criticized by Conservative MP Martin Vickers who said, “This could be extremely offensive to many Christians. It is important that all religions are given the respect they deserve and I can certainly understand why some Christians believe their deeply held views are being squeezed out.”
Many of Allens near five million Twitter followers jumped to her defense, and congratulated her on the performance.
So @lilyallen's entrance as the Baby Sheezus, in a manger, part of a full-on nativity scene, was one of the best things I've seen in a while
— Dan? (@danwardle) December 12, 2014
Allen was accused of racism last year, after featuring twerking black dancers in her comeback video for “Hard Out Here.”
Allen defended her music video as “light hearted and satirical,” adding that people were “wrong” to assume she only requested black backing dancers for the twerking scene.
Just last, week Lily Allen was attacked by music industry mogul Simon Cowell. Cowell delivered a scathing put-down for Allen, after she claimed that Fleur East’s X-Factor performance of Uptown Funk was “a great example of music industry corruption” when she sang the then unreleased song on Cowell’s prime time show.
Lily tweeted, “Well done to Sony for managing to get a not yet released song of theirs sung on prime time weekend telly. It is an amazing song. Fleur did it justice but it’s still a great example of music industry corruption.”
Miss Allen has now deleted the tweets, but that didn’t stop Simon passing comment. It would seem that Lily is unlikely to stop attracting controversy anytime soon.
