Hit singer Rihanna has lashed out at television network CBS after her song was dropped from their programme Thursday Night Football.
The singer showed her anger by criticizing CBS Sports on Twitter after they decided to leave her version of the Jay-Z song Run this Town out of their broadcast last week.
The network then announced that they will be moving in a different direction for their future broadcasts too.
“Beginning this Thursday, we will be moving in a different direction with some elemnets of our Thursday Night Football,” said Jen Sabatelle, CBS senior vice president of communications.
“We will be using our newly created Thursday Night Football theme music to open our game broadcast,” the statement explained.
Rihanna’s song had originally been selected as the theme music for the show with many believing it fitted in well with the football show.
However, the song was removed last week as the network decided to take a more serious tone ahead of a broadcast that was due to address the issue of domestic violence that had arisen in the league.
The broadcast followed the news that Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice had been suspended after footage was released allegedly showing him striking his fiancée. The network dropped their celebratory opening portion of the show in favour of the breaking news.
According to The New York Times, CBS top sports executive, Sean McManus, said that Rihanna’s previous connection to incidents involving domestic violence played a part in the decision to drop the song last week, though it was not the main reason for the change.
The remainder of the opening segment will apparently run as planned with only the theme music changing. Up until the announcement on Tuesday, Rihanna’s song was set to be featured on the hit football programme for the rest of the season.
The singer took to Twitter this week to express her annoyance about the change.
CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday? NO, Fuck you! Y’all are sad for penalizing me for this.
— Rihanna (@rihanna) September 16, 2014
