I don't even know if you care about Naomi Campbell testifying before Charles Taylor's war crimes trial at The Hague, but I do. After years of excuses, Naomi finally showed up to testify when told she could be subject to a lengthy jail term if she did not. What she said was the vaguest, most useless crap ever and contradicted what she had previously said and contradicts pictures taken and is only believable if you suspend all disbelief.
According to Naomi she went to a party back in 1997. She said she barely remembers Taylor despite the fact there were only like 10 people at this event and stood next to him smiling for pictures. She then testified she was awakened during the middle of the night and that two men were standing there and said, "A gift for you," and handed her a pouch. The next part is crazy.
She said she put the pouch next to her bed without looking at it and went to sleep. She said this is normal because people are always giving her gifts.
"I opened the pouch the next morning when I woke up... I saw a few stones in there, they were very small dirty-looking stones."
In earlier statements she had said she got a huge uncut diamond. Now they are dirty pebbles and she says she did not know they were diamonds and had no idea who had given them to her. She then said she gave the dirty pebbles to a charity but they have no record of ever having received them.
Everytime she opened her mouth you could just see Charles Taylor's side smile. She basically took the position that she saw nothing, knows nothing, and does not want to get involved. Maybe she should go visit some of those mass graves in Liberia many of which are because of the dirty little pebbles.
She may have money and fame, but she is STILL a loser
ReplyDeleteshe was very well coached
ReplyDeleteI'll take a lesson from that. Better than her going all Gonzalez on them.
ReplyDeleteOk, if Miss Naomi Campbell had ever seen in her life some dirty pebbles in her bed, would she keep them? I'll bet she would throw them to her assistant.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Enty. I would have loved to see the Hague judges grilling her.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite part is when she says she didn't think too much of it, because people are always offering her gifts, "at all hours of the night".
ReplyDeleteI can just imagine her slumped in bed after crashing from an ecstasy and cocaine binge, and hearing a knock on her door: "Darn, another gift of precious gems...These evil dictators are so inconvenient."
Ha!
ReplyDeleteI just had a look at the photo above - How fortunate must Unidentified Person feel that her name wasn't dragged into this mess. LOL
If she thought they were just dirty little pebbles, why would she give them to charity?
ReplyDeleteMaybe if someone hit her on the head with a cell phone she might remember some more details.
ReplyDeleteonce again, enty - so perfectly stated:
ReplyDelete"Maybe she should go visit some of those mass graves in Liberia many of which are because of the dirty little pebbles."
Enty I absolutely love your writing style today. Anyway on to Naomi, she also says she had never heard of "Liberia". Wow! So now she's evil, ugly and ignorant.
ReplyDeleteThis woman's just a never ending list of negatives.
I'm no fan, but I'll cut her some slack on the vague testimony against an arms dealer/war criminal. I'd be a pleading the 5th all over that. Dirty diamonds aside, I don't expect martyrdom from supermodels, unless of course you're Gisele, who'll move mountains, one of these days.
ReplyDeletealthough i loathe naomi c, i can totally see mygeorgie's point.
ReplyDeletecan you imagine if she did in fact say much more? she wouldn't be alive through the end of the week, i'd bet.
I'm wondering what the hell any of those people (Mia Farrow? Mandela??) were doing at that dinner party. The atrocities committed by Taylor have been well-known for DECADES. That selfish Naomi was there doesn't surprise me, but the others do.
ReplyDeleteI loved her comment about receiving gifts all the time during all hours of the night.
ReplyDeleteNow that's some funny sh*t.
I wonder what Tyra thinks about all this??
Rocket I agree. Why would Nelson Mandala invite Charles Taylor to his home?
ReplyDeleteApparently, she dicked with the right dictator.
ReplyDeleteShe definitely puts the "hag" in "The Hague!"
ReplyDeleteThis is the curse of physically beautiful people and how screwed up they can get. She maybe beautiful on the outside, but inside she is pure garbage.
ReplyDeleteWell done, Robert. Well done. lol
ReplyDeleteI agree with mygeorgie.
ReplyDeleteAs loathesome as she is, she's a stunningly beautiful woman and I bet she does get gifts all the time. She probably can't (or doesn't bother to) keep track of things given to her. And to be fair, if two large goons showed up at my hotel room with a bag of anything, I'd say thank you, accept the bag, then double-bolt the door.
And really, what the hell was Chuck Taylor doing at that dinner?
I also highly doubt his trial stands on the testimony of someone who supposedly received a pouch with what? I couple of diamonds. And it was 13 years ago. I sometimes forget what I did this morning and my life is dull.
I care, because my parents met in Liberia, and Charles Taylor is EVIL. Wtf is Nelson Mandela doing standing next to him? I'm disappointed in every single person in that picture. It's not like it was ever a secret that he was committing atrocities.
ReplyDeleteI just heard part of her testimony on NPR. She speaks of how appearing at The Hague is an inconvenience to her life. Her attitude oozes above-it-all entitlement as if this trial is as unimportant as most fender benders.
ReplyDeleteReading about the trial is so chilling - he targeted the civilian population to brutalize and destroy. He is the reason that sex crimes in war time are now crimes against humanity and can be tried at the Hague. I am wondering about the entire group at that dinner too. Nelson, why was he there and I hope there is some explanation by Mia Farrow as to why she was there too. She is doing a huge funding drive for the displaced in Dufar.
ReplyDeleteThis charity just set up the first prosthetic clinic in the entire country to Sierra Leone, one clinic that helps all the 100'000 of thousands who had one or both limbs removed by this madman's army.
http://www.pofsea.org/founder.htm
Mooshki
ReplyDeleteHe was probably there b/c the incident occurred in 1997 and I think he was newly elected president at the time....and so he probably was invited.
It's not like anyone knew that Taylor was a criminal in the early to mid 90's ....he was just a new president. No one knew what was going on until the early to late 00's
Everybody is going on about how she should known it was blood diamonds...but how many of us of ever seen an uncut diamond and how many of us would have guessed that the diamond was acquired under nefarious means.
I mean if this occurred in 1997...then she couldn't have known the true nature of Taylor and so she couldn't have guessed that those were blood diamonds.
Blood diamonds didn't become a part of the English/American lexicon until like 1999....before there the term "blood diamond" didn't exist and many people didn't know about Liberia or anything about Charles Taylor or any civil wars in Africa. Not like CNN was covering it on a regular basis.
I mean many American's would know that Liberia was settled by freed slaves.... how many of you guys can point out the picture of Charles Taylor or point out where Nigeria or Liberia is on a map without googling it. ( Not many).
I cut her some slack....it would be nice if this post had some historically information included so some people can get the full story.
Yellow journalism.
Lot of reasons to hate on Naomi...i.e. being a bitch....but to bash her for not remembering an event that happened 13 years ago involving someone that she hardly knew ( who had the time had a clean reputation) is pretty retarded.
The sad part most people wouldn't have cared or heard about the tribune if it didn't have a celebrity slant to it.
I knew Liberia was founded by freed American slaves AND Monrovia, its capital was named after James Monroe. I learned that in high school history. It was an experiment, that most historians believe, failed.
ReplyDeleteI can understand not remembering something from 13 years ago, wanting to protect her family, but what I CANNOT understand is Campbell's attitude about testifying. She never cared about her family when she hung out with other atrocious people, so why is Taylor so special?
Campbell has the crappiest attitude about doing something that can actually help others.
I echo RocketQueen's and TinselSass's sentiments.
ReplyDeleteZandra, I found this:
http://clg.portalxm.com/library/keytext.cfm?keytext_id=74
I thought it was the Rwandan genocide that made rape a crime against humanity.
Either way, this guy needs to be dealt with. Only problem is, there will be another to take his place.
I can't wait to hear Mia Farrow and another woman who was at that dinner testify against Naomi tomorrow. Apparently their testimonies will totally contradict Naomi's version of events. It was Mia Farrow who ratted Naomi out because Naomi was boasting to everyone the next morning about receiving "diamonds" from Charles Taylor.
ReplyDeleteThe prosecution is trying to show a direct link between the blood diamonds and Taylor, so the events of this particular evening are important in establishing that he was involved in the diamond trade long before all the atrocities came to light.
I guess Mia and the other woman are braver than Naomi because they aren't afraid to testify publicly to help convict this man of war crimes. That is "true" beauty :)
Even if we disregard her knowing or not knowing about the diamonds, this passage in the NYT just made me want to hit her with something really hard.
ReplyDeleteWhen Brenda Hollis, the lead prosecutor, asked Ms. Campbell if she was nervous, she replied: “I was made to be here. Obviously I just want to get this over with and get on with my life. This is a terrible inconvenience to me.”
An inconvinence to HER??? Having to show up and give a brief testimony??? Tell that to the people whose lifes were taken away, or ruined, by that man.
What an idiot.
The function was apparently at one of Mandela's homes on behalf of one of his charities.
ReplyDeleteTaylor had been recently elected.
But:
1) opening doors to guys in the middle of the night to strange men
2) "I didn't even know Liberia" and in the same testimony "He was the president of Liberia, and so we talked."
3) There was flirting (ah dinner parties with African strongmen!)
4) She gets gifts all the time - big diamond or uncut, yellow stones?
5) Oprah several years ago: I don't know anything about it vs Oh yeah, some guys came and gave me a package
6) Unopened bag and went back to sleep? Really?
And I'm with the person who noted that in the scheme of vile people she's known, she's now scared of Chuck Taylor (apparently not before he was charged)? Ok, maybe if I thought she was close to any African relatives.
Not feeling much sympathy for her, really. But I love to hear if she was threatened at all by Taylor allies.
Kit...wrong.
ReplyDeleteTaylor was elected in 1997 and forced out of power in 2003 and was exiled to Nigeria the following year.
If people knocked on your door at night wouldn't you open it....especially if you were staying with nelson mendela.
Please get your facts right.