Features
Warning: Do Not Buy Chris Brown’s Album
In addition to the parental advisory label on Chris Brown’s new album, copies of “Fortune” sold in one of London’s HMV stores were temporarily plastered with another warning. Just in case you somehow forgot that the singer assaulted Rihanna in 2009, a bright yellow sticker proclaimed, “Warning Do Not Buy This Album! This Man Beats Women.”
A representative for HMV told E! News last week the stickers had “nothing to do with HMV or representing our views. It would appear a member of the public popped into one of our stores yesterday and stickered a handful of CDs.
“These were spotted and quickly removed, but, before we could act, the individual concerned must have taken a photo and sent it to the media. To our knowledge there are no further stickers in our stores now.”
Photo: @CUSUwomen
A sticker warns fans in London not to buy Chris Brown’s new album because “this man beats women.”
Although Cambridge University Student Union Women’s Campaign hasn’t taken credit for the prank, NME.com says that the first photo of the stickers was tweeted by the organization.
Along with the photo, the CUSU Women’s Campaign wrote Sept. 12, “Someone’s been busy in Cambridge! Respect to whoever did this in HMV today!”
Unfortunately, the idea behind the stickers may have backfired. Instead of negatively affecting album sales by reminding fans of Brown’s criminal record, a representative for HMV said the warning label might end up benefiting the singer.
“I guess they got their point across pretty effectively – with widespread coverage around the world, though, by the same token, quite a few more people now know there’s a new Chris Brown album out,” the HMV rep told NME.com.
It’s hard to imagine forgetting the 2009 assault. Last week the incident was once again in the news thanks to Brown’s new neck tattoo that seemed to resemble a beaten woman. A representative for Brown told TMZ the image is a Day of the Dead sugar skull.
Brown was scheduled to appear at a Los Angeles court Sept. 17 to review his probation for the assault. The hearing was postponed a week to give authorities more time to complete a probation report. In July a judge ordered an audit of Brown’s six-month community service to look into how many hours the singer actually completed.