Yesterday, one of Tiger Woods’ alleged mistresses told the international media that she was half naked in Woods’ and Elin Nordegren’s bedroom in Los Angeles when the golfing great got word that his father Earl had died from terminal cancer in 2006.
Over the weekend, Chris Brown sent a profanity-laced tirade on Twitter because he falsely believed that a Walmart store in Connecticut did not carry his new album Graffiti. After the release of those obscene tweets, Brown announced he would discontinue his Twitter account.
Both Woods and Brown are celebrity icons whose public personas have mutated grotesquely in recent weeks and months, respectively. Both are black men (although Woods tried in vain to minimize the importance of his African ancestry), who as a cultural subset have been long-despised and feared and traditionally portrayed as violent, oversexed and ill-tempered animals who lust after what they are forbidden to have — white women and fair-skinned beauties.
When Brown entered a Wallingford, Conn., Walmart and didn’t see copies of his album on the shelves, Brown responded with this explosive comment on Twitter: “They didn’t even have my album in the back – not on the shlves, saw for myself,” he typed in a series of tweets. “I’m tired of this s—. Major stores are blackballing my CD, not stocking the shelves and lying to customers. What the f— do I gotta do.”
As if Brown couldn’t go any further, he tweeted out a few more missiles: “I’m not biting my tongue about s— else. The industry can kiss my a–,” he wrote. “WTF – yah, I said it and I ain’t retracting s—“
Brown was on a roll now, saying he talked to the manager and railed about the fact that Alicia Keys’ albums are already stocked and ready to go for her release. After the disgraced singer finished regurgitating on his own shoes, Walmart officials told the media that his albums were not on the shelves because they had sold out of the shipped copies and would be receiving more. Another Walmart executive said Brown’s Graffiti album is being sold in all of their U.S. stores.
This is one area where Brown may want to follow Woods’ lead. After the singer’s accusations that Oprah stabbed him in the back and the slew of senseless media interviews to counter Rihanna’s claims, Brown may want to be like Tiger and be quiet.
Well, actually Brown did go silent in a way — the falling star said he has cancelled his Twitter account, leaving tens of thousands of followers and fans stranded. –terry shropshire
