Kelly Clarkson addresses the controversy swirling around the sponsorship of her Indonesian concert dates by a tobacco company, via her blog:
So ….my morning began with finding out that I am all over billboards, tv ads, and other media formats along side a tobacco company who unbeknownst to me is sponsoring my Jakarta date on my current tour. I was not made aware of this and am in no way an advocate or an ambassador for youth smoking. I’m not even a smoker, nor have I ever been. Unfortunately, my only option at this point was to cancel the show in order to stop the sponsorship. However, I can’t justify penalizing my fans for someone else’s oversight. This is a lose-lose situation for me and I am not happy about it but the damage has been done and I refuse to cancel on my fans. I think the hardest part of situations like this is getting personally attacked for something I was completely unaware of and being used as some kind of political pawn.
Kelly
How did Kelly’s people not know who was sponsoring her shows? Kelly is correct–the damage is done. There’s no point in penalizing the fans for the mix-up.