Iggy Azalea And French Montana Upset Animal Rights Activists
It’s tough being Iggy Azalea. A few weeks after getting into yet another beef – this time with her own co-stars on Australia’s X-Factor – she’s being lambasted by animal rights activists for posing next to a birthday gift for her quasi-boyfriend, rapper French Montana.
As reported by UPI, French Montana and Iggy Azalea posted photos on Instagram posing with a bejeweled elephant in Montana’s backyard. The elephant, wearing jewelry on its head, neck and feet, was actually a birthday gift delivered to Montana’s house for his birthday on Thursday.
Fans immediately barraged the photos with comments like, “Thats just not right! Poor animal” and “This is so sad and ignorant – this is not how you love animals.” French Montana took to Twitter to rebuke those claims.
Shut yo ass up that elephant was a surprise for my bday in my yard when I walked out and was from the zoo and people that take care of it https://t.co/4xYembikJO
— French Montana (@FrencHMonTanA) November 9, 2016
Regardless, this isn’t the kind of optic Iggy Azalea needs, even if by association. She famously got into a Twitter beef in 2015 with rapper Azealia Banks’, as reported by Us Weekly, with Banks asserting Azalea appropriated black culture in her music and sold it to white America. Several figures from hip-hop royalty, including Snoop Dogg and Q-Tip, came to Banks’s defense, bashing Azalea as clueless. She was even called out by Nicki Minaj in 2014 at the BET awards.
“What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj is when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it,” a direct insult at Iggy, as reported by TIME. Minaj was alluding of course, to the rumor that Iggy’s mentor T.I. was responsible for her lyrics. The following year, by R&B icon Erykah Badu, as reported by the Mirror, piled on when she took the stage and called Azalea out directly when she said in her opening monologue: “What you’re doing is definitely not rap.”
And most recently, Azalea’s co-stars on the Australian X-Factor have had some disparaging words for the 26 year-old rapper. Former American Idol standout Adam Lambert went on the on the Australian morning show Sunrise to talk about the rumor with Iggy on the set.
“To be honest with you, I have no personal issue with Iggy. She and I have found some common ground. But she is quite a diva. She shows up late, you never know what you’re going to get with her. It is never boring. I will tell you that. There were couple of times where I was like, ‘Girl, where the hell are you?'”
This came on the heels of Guy Sebastian, another judge on the series, lodging similar complaints about Iggy’s diva behavior, as reported by the Daily Mail.
“We’re just not similar people at all and I definitely have to bite my tongue. I’ve said a lot of things in my head.”
The Daily Mail is also reporting that X-Factor staff have allegedly started calling her names as well because of her frequent tardiness and lack of professionalism on set.
Overall, it’s been a tough career for Iggy Azalea to date. After bursting onto the scene with the hit single “Fancy” and even garnering a Grammy nod for her debut album, Azalea has had to combat haters on social media, and worst of all, herself.
Of course, it hasn’t helped that her ex-fiance Nick Young was caught cheating on her with his own ex Keonna Green. The devastating news not only impacted her personal life, but her professional one as well, causing the delay of her sophomore album Digital Distortion, as she told People recently.
“I needed a lot of time,” she said before matter-of-factly detailing her predicament. “I mean, you wake up one morning and your fiance is having a baby with someone else, you’re going to need some time, right?”
[Featured image by Earl Gibson III/Getty Images & Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]
