Dixie Chicks Pose Nude in Answer to Critics
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The three women of country music band the Dixie Chicks pose nude on the cover of a weekly showbiz magazine in a defiant answer to a backlash over their opposition to the war in Iraq.
Entertainment Weekly on Thursday released next week’s cover in which the Grammy-winning performers wear only contradictory slogans painted on their bodies, including “Traitors,” “Saddam’s Angels,” “Dixie Sluts,” and “Proud Americans.”
“We don’t want people to think that we are trying to be provocative. It’s not about the nakedness,” band member Martie Maguire said in an accompanying interview with the magazine. “It’s about clothes getting in the way of labels.”
Maguire and fellow musicians Emily Robison and Natalie Maines said they posed nude in response to the controversy created by pro-war advocates over Maines’ remark at a concert in London on March 10 that they were “ashamed” President Bush was from their home state of Texas.
Maguire told the magazine Maines also said in introducing the song “Travelin’ Soldier” in London that it was neither a pro-war nor a peace song. She said Maines’ bandmate Robison took the microphone immediately after the comment about Bush and said, “But you know we support the troops 100 percent.”
Within days of the comment being published, Maines apologized, but many U.S. country music radio stations all but banished Dixie Chicks hits from the airwaves, some fans smashed their CDs and sales plummeted. Trash was dumped outside Robison’s house.
DEATH THREATS
Maines said in a separate ABC TV “Primetime” interview to air on Thursday night that the band members feared for their lives amid criticism they say was “out of control.”
She told ABC’s Diane Sawyer she criticized Bush out of frustration and remained “passionate” in her anti-war views, even if she now regretted the remark. ABC released a transcript of the interview on Wednesday.
“At that moment, on the eve of war, I had a lot of questions that I felt were unanswered,” Maines told ABC. “I think the way I said it was disrespectful. The wording I used, the way I said it, that was disrespectful. I feel regret for, you know, the choice of words. Am I sorry that I asked questions and that I don’t just follow? No.”
Maines, who was interviewed with Maguire and Robison, said despite telling the London audience she was “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas,” she did not feel that way.
“No, I’m not truly embarrassed that, you know, President Bush is from my state, that’s not really what I care about,” she said. “I felt like there was a lack of compassion every time I saw Bush talking about this. I honestly felt a lack of compassion for people that are questioning this (war), for the people that are about to die for this on both sides.”
Maguire said she understood why some fans would be upset by the remark but found much of the reaction to be disproportionate.
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