Pop singer Rihanna was initially praised for the inclusive nature of her latest lingerie fashion show, but she later had to apologize to the Muslim community after outrage erupted on social media regarding one of the music choices for her show.
The fashion show premiered on Amazon Prime Video on Friday.
The video featured a song by a London-based artist Coucou Chloe that sampled a narration from the Islamic religious texts. Muslims consider them sacred and were offended that they were used in a lingerie fashion video.
"Hadith are the sacred words of our prophet, you can't just use it for your lingerie show," said one Twitter user identifying themselves as Muslim.
as a muslim, no words can describe how disappointed i am with Rihanna for letting her models dance to hadith. Hadit… https://t.co/volpOUR6oo— dee⁷ (@dee⁷) 1601851787.0
They added, "disgusting and extremely disrespectful."
'Honest, yet careless mistake'
Rihanna apologized Tuesday in a statement on Instagram.
"I'd like to thank the Muslim community for pointing out a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our savage x fenty show," Rihanna wrote. "I would more importantly like to apologize to you for this honest, yet careless mistake."
https://t.co/09DHebf0SV— Savage X Fenty by Rihanna (@Savage X Fenty by Rihanna) 1601998664.0
"We understand that we have hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and i'm incredibly disheartened by this!" she continued. "I do not play with any kind of disrespect toward God or any religion and therefore the use of the song in our project was completely irresponsible! Moving forward we will make sure nothing like this ever happens again."
Others noted the hypocrisy of Rihanna saying she would never disrespect a religion when she offended Catholics in 2018 with her "papal-inspired" dress at the Met Gala.
Shining bright: Singer Rihanna arrives in a papal-inspired outfit for the Met Gala in New York. See more of our pho… https://t.co/7KMt3LoGgS— Financial Times (@Financial Times) 1526166671.0
The music artist that produced the song also responded by saying they would strip the hadith narration from all versions of the song available online.
Rihanna has been openly critical of President Donald Trump and his policies. In one outburst from 2017, she tweeted that the president was an "immoral pig" over his order to restrict immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries.
The Savage X Fenty lingerie show was also praised online for including models and performers of all sizes.
Here's more about the Muslim outrage:
Rihanna Apologizes To Muslim Community For Savage X Fenty Showwww.youtube.com