Rihanna has been officially cut from Thursday Night Football, but not before the singer lashed out at the National Football League for dropping her from last week’s CBS broadcast.
“CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday?” Rihanna posted on Twitter this morning. “NO, Fuck you! Y’all are sad for penalizing me for this.”
In a cruel twist of irony, Rihanna, a victim of domestic violence abuse, had her pre-recorded Thursday Night Football theme song pulled from broadcasts so the network could focus on a news story on Ray Rice. The Baltimore Ravens running back was suspended indefinitely after videotape of him punching his now-wife in a Last Vegas elevator surfaced and caused a national uproar.
Many thought the league and network pulled Rihanna’s spot — a snippet of her 2009 collaboration with Jay Z, “Run This Town” — because it didn’t want to draw parallels between the singer, who was beaten by Chris Brown in 2009, and Janay Rice.
Through Rihanna’s tweets, it seemed like the NFL was set to run the intro, which also features a spoken word piece by actor Don Cheadle, for this Thursday’s game in Atlanta.
That’s when the singer spoke out.
CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday? NO, Fuck you! Y'all are sad for penalizing me for this.
— Rihanna (@rihanna) September 16, 2014
The audacity…
— Rihanna (@rihanna) September 16, 2014
However, a little while ago a New York Times reporter announced that the NFL has pulled the plug on Rihanna.
Stay tuned…
After Rihanna protest, CBS will drop her song from opening of Thu Night Football thos week.
— Bill Carter (@wjcarter) September 16, 2014