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Michael Jackson and Prince Abdullah al-Khalifa of Bahrain
After he was acquitted of molesting young boys in a long, miserable trial in California, Michael Jackson fled to the dunes of Bahrain—a tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf recently in the news for uprisings against its crown prince. Jackson found a friend in Bahrain's Prince Abdullah al-Khalifa, who helped the weary pop icon hide from the press for months. Their friendship was not to last however, after Jackson returned to the U.S. In 2006, Abdullah sued him in a London high court for $7 million, claiming he had promised, among other things, to record two albums and stage an in-house musical production in the prince's palace. (AP Photo/Adnan Malik/Total Communications/ho) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
From Mariah Carey serenading the Gadhafis to James Brown getting on the good foot for Mobutu to Oliver Stone lionizing Hugo Chavez on film, U.S. and Western celebrities have a history of entertaining and palling around with autocrats. See the Full story at The Daily Beast
In 1974, Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of the country then called Zaire, wanted to show the world of what he had done since Congo's rocky struggle for independence 14 years earlier. Mobutu, a close ally of the U.S., had a nearly 30-year reign over Congo-Zaire—one of the longest and most devastating in African history. Nevertheless, the "Rumble in the Jungle" and the concert that preceded it brought some of the biggest celebrities of the time to Kinshasa. Mobutu paid $5 million each to Muhammad Ali and George Foreman to bring their famous boxing feud to Zaire's capital, as part of the "authenticity campaign" for the new country. Zaire 74, the concert held six weeks before the fight—it was originally intended to be the same weekend as the fight, but Foreman suffered an injury that pushed the concert back six weeks—brought James Brown, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, the Spinners, and Bill Withers to perform in an epic concert. The 2009 documentary, "Soul Power, captures the great music that came out of the concert—with the ubiquitous signs of Mobutu's rule everywhere in the background. (AP Photos) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
Chavez hadn't lost his love of Hollywood by 2010, when he teamed up with director Oliver Stone to make a documentary about Venezuela. Stone came back so impressed with Chavez that he introduced Chavez to Venice audiences when the announcer left the president off at the premiere of South of the Border. The film did much better in the U.S. than in Venezuela, where it bombed. Maybe Venezuelans were sick of Chavez's "intoxicating" energy. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
Hugo Chavez may not be considered a dictator, so maybe that's why Hollywood is so fond of him? The leftist Venezuelan president has had his fair share of Hollywood visitors, including Kevin Spacey, Danny Glover, and Sean Penn. Spacey and Chavez did not speak about their meeting, but reportedly Chavez and Glover agreed to make a movie called Toussaint about the Haitian slave who led Haiti's overthrow of colonialism. Penn and Chavez discussed a number of topics, including politics and President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, and also whether Penn would film a movie in Venezuela. The meeting must have gone well, Penn later railed on Real Time With Bill Maher about the portrayal of Chavez in American media, suggesting prison time for journalists who call Chavez a dictator. (AP Photo/Miraflores Press Office/Juan Carlos Solorzano) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
Paul Robeson was one of several black Americans, including some of his relatives, who emigrated to the U.S.S.R. and became radical political activists. After an illustrious football career, Robeson became one of the first concert singers to popularize the performance of Negro spirituals, and appeared in several plays as well. When he first visited the Soviet Union in 1934, he was amazed by its lack of segregation. "Here, I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity," he said. As he became a more vocal advocate for communism, the State Department confiscated his passport and forced him to appear before Sen. Joe McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee. Robeson wrote glowing tributes to Joseph Stalin and died without regretting his faith in Soviet leaders. (AP Photo/Bill Achatz) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
British supermodel Naomi Campbell is famous for assaulting anyone who gets in her way, from friends and assistants to Heathrow Airport police. But one of her brushes with the law involved something much more sinister. After a dinner at the home of former South African President Nelson Mandela, she reportedly told people that Liberian dictator Charles Taylor had given her a huge diamond. Taylor was later brought to trial on war-crimes charges, and accused of using "blood diamonds" to buy weapons. Campbell denied the accusations angrily, refusing to answer questions and storming out of an interview about it. She testified at Charles Taylor's trial in 2010, though her involvement in the diamond controversy, has never been fully uncovered. (AP Photo/Robin van Lonkhuijsen/Francois Durand/Getty Images) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
After he was acquitted of molesting young boys in a long, miserable trial in California, Michael Jackson fled to the dunes of Bahrain—a tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf recently in the news for uprisings against its crown prince. Jackson found a friend in Bahrain's Prince Abdullah al-Khalifa, who helped the weary pop icon hide from the press for months. Their friendship was not to last however, after Jackson returned to the U.S. In 2006, Abdullah sued him in a London high court for $7 million, claiming he had promised, among other things, to record two albums and stage an in-house musical production in the prince's palace. (AP Photo/Adnan Malik/Total Communications/ho) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
WikiLeaks cables revealed that not only did a Gadhafi son hold a secret New Year's Eve bash in St. Bart's in 2009, but that the Gadhafis repeated it the next year. This time, it was hosted by Hannibal, Moammar's fifth-oldest son, who hired Beyoncé and Usher to entertain guests. Reports varied on how much they were paid; the numbers ranged from six figures to $2 million. Beyoncé's appearance drew even more attention than Carey's had—and more criticism, because Hannibal had recently been in the news for beating his wife, and news had started leaking out that the Gadhafis' father had ordered a jetliner bombing that killed hundreds over Lockerbie, Scotland. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
In 2009, Western media reported that Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, a son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, had paid Mariah Carey $1 million to sing just four songs at his New Year's bash in St. Bart's. Gadhafi petulantly denied the reports in the state newspaper he controlled, blaming the big spending on his younger brother, Mutassim. As the Gadhafis' father scrambles to suppress a growing revolution, a cable released by WikiLeaks has revealed the sons' spending—including Mutassim's demands for $1.2 billion to build a personal militia and, sure enough, a big payout to Mariah. Jay-Z is rumored to to have joined Carey on the dictators' stage. (AP Photo/Peter Kramee) See the Full story at The Daily Beast
