While the FCC turned a blind eye to M.I.A. and her bird flipping antics during Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl Halftime Show, the NFL secretly went after the singer with a $1.5 million lawsuit for breach of her performance contract.
According to an NFL spokesman, the action was filed with the American Arbitration Association one month after her bad act, with any monetary damages recovered to be earmarked for charity.
The National Football League have been quietly going after the 38-year-old rapper with a vengeance for the past 18 months.
Court documents claim, “This dispute concerns a blatant, intentional and calculated attempt by M.I.A., a musical artist, to garner worldwide publicity and attention by making an offensive gesture to the cameras during the Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show performance.”
M.I.A.’s lawyer told The Hollywood Reporter, “She is going to go public with an explanation of how ridiculous it was for the NFL and its fans to devote such furor to this incident.”
She had hoped to settle the case privately but now that the statute of limitations prevents the FCC or NBC from jumping on the bandwagon, she’ll take her changes, should the case end up in court.
It was during a performance of ‘Give Me All Your Luvin’ with Madonna that the one-finger salute took place.
Madge said later, “I was really surprised. I didn’t know anything about it and when I found out I wasn’t happy about it. I understand it’s punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy, and positivity — it just seemed negative.”
She added, “It’s such a teenager…irrelevant thing to do. What was the point? It was just out of place.”
Check it out on the video clip below — at the 13 second mark on the slider:
Photos: Video Screen Grabs