A lot of celebrities have recently stepped up to the plate when it comes to either making monetary donations or donating bottles of water to people in Flint, Mich., in response to their water crisis. But one celebrity is now refuting reports that during a charity concert, he refused to perform because his favorite champagne wasn’t available.
According to the New York Daily News, Timbaland was in town Thursday to perform at Club Bleu for a benefit concert to raise money. But the club owner, Mitchell Jaworski, said that Timbaland didn’t perform because the club could not provide more bottles of Armand de Brignac, a high-priced champagne marketed by Jay Z, to the producer and his entourage.
“They had about 15 bottles of liquor and champagne, which is extremely excessive, especially for a charity event,” Jaworski told the paper. “They seemed more concerned about getting every drop of liquor.”
Jaworski also said that Timbaland did not live up to his end of the contract that was signed two weeks earlier. The club owner said, too, that once Timbaland got onstage, all he did was stand there and bop his head to the music.
“His management [took] classlessness to a new level when they said Timbaland did ‘not feel like’ performing,” Jaworski wrote Saturday on Facebook, the paper reports. “They then insisted that we show them the signed contract for the night and where the stipulation was for the ‘live’ performance. Finally, management relented and literally had to wake Timbaland up so he could proceed to stand behind the decks and nod his head for 30 minutes.”
A representative for Timbaland responded to the accusations with a statement to Billboard.
“Unfortunately, the statement made by the promoter in Detroit is simply not true,” Timbaland’s rep said in the statement. Timbaland is an “extremely generous person who agreed to a much lower fee for this event to raise money for the Flint, Mich.’s water crisis. The promoter was fully aware that this was not a full band performance onstage, yet still promoted it as such. The club was still able to raise money for charity, which was our goal in doing this event all along.”
In the end, the club raised $3,000 for the water crisis, but one has to wonder how much Timbaland pocketed for his appearance.