On Sunday night, Rihanna came under fire on Twitter for a song choice in her latest Savage x Fenty show. The track, “Doom” by London producer Coucou Chloe, samples a recording of a hadith – a saying from the prophet Muhammad. Hadiths are considered sacred to Muslims, with many people on Twitter calling out the inappropriate usage – the song accompanied lingerie-clad models dancing.
Today, the singer issued an apology on her Instagram story admitting that she was unaware of the sample’s origins and calling it an “honest, yet careless mistake”.
“I’d like to thank the Muslim community for pointing out a huge oversight that was unintentionally offensive in our savage x fenty show (sic),” she posted. “I would more importantly like to apologize to you for this honest, yet careless mistake. We understand that we have hurt many of our Muslim brothers and sisters, and i'm incredibly disheartened by this! (sic) I do not play with any kind of disrespect toward God or any religion and therefore the use of the song in our project was completely irresponsible! Moving forward we will make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Thank you for your forgiveness and understanding, Rih”.
The track’s producer Coucou Chloe also issued an apology. “I take full responsibility for the fact I did not research these words properly and want to thank those of you who have taken the time to explain this to me,” she said, adding that she was working to urgently pull it from streaming platforms.