LIVE 8 SUES ANNA NICOLE SMITH

The whole case of Live 8 suing over Anna Nicole Smith is pretty much everything that was wrong with Live 8 in microcosm. According to documents over on The Smoking Gun, Live 8 struck a deal with TrimSpa diet products - the company would give some cash for advertising on ABC during the show and in return, TrimSpa's spokesperson - Nicole Smith - would get to appear in the programme itself. Nicole Smith, claims the charity, turned up half naked and intoxicated; but they still let her go on. To make things worse, Trimspa never paid the cash.

Live 8 has issued a lawsuit, complaining that Nicole Smith "damaged Live 8's reputation and goodwill in the entertainment industry by her unbecoming and erratic behavior." Oh, and that they could have sold the advertising to some other corporation, one that would have paid, dammit.

But where do you start? A charity event supposed to raise awareness about people who barely have enough to live on, people for whom starvation can't be held at bay by a delicious, nutritious shake, doing a deal to plug diet aids? That whiffs a little bit.

Then, as well as taking cash for an advert, they agree to cede some editorial control to allow the advert to bleed into the event itself - so, some of the airtime that was, supposedly, meant to be raising awareness of the plight of the world's poorest people was allowed to turn into a commercial for a vanity product for the rich. That whiffs more than a little.

Next, the spokesperson turned up dressed and behaving in a way the charity felt was inappropriate. But it let her go on anyway. After all, it was about the cash. "Hey, she's going to make us look like a bunch of jerks, but... think of the moolah." It's getting pretty stenchy now, isn't it?

Then, when it all gets to it, they drag themselves into a court action to try and grub some of the cash back, reminding the world they did all this in the first place, and making themselves look a little seedier. Okay, you lost some slightly smelly cash - but isn't your organisation meant to be focusing its efforts on the world trade negotiations? Isn't piddling about with some too-late worries over Anna Nicole Smith naked or near naked appearance something of a distraction from what you're meant to be doing? How much are all these lawyers costing Live8? How many goats or fishing nets or river blindness ops could have been bought for the money you've already pissed away just filing this lawsuit?

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