Rihanna says sorry to the Muslim community for “honest mistake”

From Cosmopolitan

Singer and designer Rihanna has issued an apology to the Muslim community, after the use of a song containing an Islamic verse sparked complaints when it was used during a recent Savage x Fenty lingerie fashion show. Backlash ensued online after Doom by Coucou Chloe, containing a Muslim text known as a Hadith, featured in the show. A Hadith is included in a group of important religious texts thought to be the spoken words of the Prophet Muhammad.

Once aware of the error, Rihanna wrote a statement to any fans who'd been upset by the choice of music. Sharing on Instagram stories, the Believe It hit-maker said, "I'd like to thank the Muslim community for pointing out a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our Savage x Fenty show."

She continued on to say, "I would more importantly like to apologize to you for this honest, yet careless mistake. We understand that we have hurt many of our Muslim sisters and brothers, and I'm incredibly disheartened by this! I do not play with any kind of disrespect toward God or any religion and therefore the use of this song in our project was completely irresponsible!"

Rihanna added that she and her team have learnt from the mistake and pledged to do better moving forward. "Moving forward we will make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Thank you for your forgiveness and understanding."

Coucou Chloe, the artist of the track, has also tweeted apologising for not researching the song thoroughly enough. Her account has since been suspended but @Muslim (a Muslim-focussed news site) shared screenshots of the tweets that read: "I want to deeply apologize for the offence caused by the vocal samples used in my song 'DOOM'. The song was created using samples from Baile Funk tracks I found online. At the time, I was not aware that these samples used texts from an Islamic Hadith." The track is still available on Spotify on the show's official Savage x Fenty playlist.

The song has now been removed from streaming platforms following the complaints.

One Muslim Twitter user said of the song choice, "If you guys don’t know much about islam(that is completely fine!!), a Hadith is the words/ advice that our Prophet Mohammad (SAV) spoke and gave to people to educate them. It is very disrespectful to use it in a video of people dancing and even more in a lingerie show."

Another joined the conversation by saying, "Rihanna is messed up for using a song with a Hadith in it to play at her LINGERIE show. What is up with artists using Islam as an aesthetic?? Have some respect."

One also added that some models in another of Rihanna's shows looked as though they were wearing hijabs. "I can’t let Rihanna have a pass with appropriating Islam for her first show, the models wore a scarf around their heads and it looked like HIJAB and her second show she used a track that remixed a HADITH.. Why is no one talking about this, my religion is not y’all’s aesthetic."

Others have praised Rihanna for issuing a genuine apology. In a tweet that has garnered over 126,000 likes, Twitter user @onikarih said, "THIS is how you apologize, she took full responsibility and educated herself, she listened to everyone that was hurt by this, acknowledged the fact that people were hurt by what she did and took accountability and apologized."

Another echoed similar sentiments, saying, "We demanded Rihanna to apologize for it and she did... Her apology seems really genuine and her heart was in the right place... Accept it or not, that's your decision."

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