Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Hollywood actor Armie Hammer, models Irina Shayk, Sofia Richie and fashion influencer Olivia Culpo are being criticized for taking a hefty amount of money to attend a music festival in Saudi Arabia.

The celebs were slammed by users after they posted their pictures attending the MDL Beast music festival in Riyadh on social media over the weekend without mentioning the country’s controversial human rights record, as reported by the Daily Mail.

Richie, Winnie Harlow, Alessandra Ambrosio, Joan Smalls, Shayk, Stella Maxwell, Luka Sabbat, Hammer, Scott Disick and Ryan Phillippe all shared multiple pictures recently that were tagged in Riyadh.

Barring Phillippe, none has responded to the backlash. He lashed out at a person on his Instagram post writing, “Things are changing, hopefully you do too sh*thead,”.

“It’s changing moron. Have you been? I’d love to take any woman important to me. F**k off. First of all I’m traveling many places in the mid east. 2nd, find me a country without issues, i’ll wait. 3rd things are changing and progressing rapidly in KSA and the people are lovely. pay better attention and quit virtue signalling princess,” he said to another user.

Many have called out the tone-deaf nature of such events in the country, while citing last year’s killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the arrest of women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul and the treatment of LGBTQ community.

Popular Instagram account, Diet Prada, named and shamed some of the celebrities present, accusing them of allegedly accepting six-figure sums for attending and geo-tagging posts to “rehabilitate the image of Saudi Arabia”. Bollywood star Sonam Kapoor was also one of the celebrities to be tagged.

The backlash regarding their visit came as Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death over the brutal murder of Khashoggi last year.

By Yash Singh

A film graduate who writes for a living, apparently.

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