Though it certainly isn’t the first time a pop singer has had to cancel her concert in a southeast Asian country thanks to concerns over religious fervor, Ke$ha‘s cancelled Saturday night performance at Kuala Lumpur stadium in Malaysia is still super-disappointing. The good people of Malaysia deserve their Ke$ha, dammit, but religious fundamentalists are proving that, in any context, in any country, they’re prepared to ruin everyone’s weekend plans at a moment’s notice.
Malaysia’s Ministry of Communications and Multimedia issued a brief statement Friday explaining that it rejected the concert organizer Livescape’s application for the concert on grounds that Ke$ha “touches on religious sensitivities and cultural values of Malaysians,” despite supposed modesty alterations Livescape made to Ke$ha’s lyrics and wardrobe. This isn’t the first time the predominantly Muslim country has seen a major pop star cancel concert plans: Beyoncé has had to cancel shows twice, and Erykah Badu cancelled a show last year after a photo surfaced of the word “Allah” painted on her body. Noted urine-imbiber Ke$ha probably didn’t have much of a chance of performing at Kuala Lumpur to begin with, but ti was worth a shot (I guess). [AFP via Yahoo]
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Image via AP, Owen Sweeney