Colorful femcee Nicki Minaj certainly had the Catholic Church seeing red after her now infamous 2012 Grammy performance. Depicting an exorcism of alter ego Roman Zolanski, the interesting set may have seen the ‘Did It On ‘Em’ darling rid herself of demons, but in the process she certainly gained some new enemies.
Debuting ‘Roman Holiday’, one of many new tracks featuring on her forthcoming ‘Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded’ LP (due April 3rd), the Trinidadian tapped longtime Lady Gaga choreographer Laurieann Gibson for the Grammy showing. As evidenced by many of Gaga’s numbers, Gibson’s creativity is no stranger to controversy.
Never one to bite her tongue, check out Gibson’s thoughts on the backlash of Nicki’s number in her candid Rolling Stone interview below. There, the Canadian choreographer speaks on Minaj’s movie plans for Roman and her famous falling out with Gaga:
Via Rolling Stone:
“To be honest, no, we didn’t do anything for controversy,” Gibson claims. “We never had that conversation at all. Nicki just truly wanted Roman to be exorcised, and I just went to work.”
“I personally chose to stay away from any religious moves. There were no crosses. There were no religious symbols. We made sure we were very respectable. The bishop was a symbolic figurehead. He was not [intended] in a negative light, but in a position of authority.”
“You don’t get press on the other stuff,” she says. “As far as the theatrical and dramatic performance, it’s entertainment. If you are going to rise up about a performance that is not literal or harming from two people that are believers, then we need to see that anger being used to make a change.”
“People can’t wrap their head around the fact that Gaga did not do that on her own. She didn’t. There was a Laurieann Gibson. There was someone to execute at a high level in a short period of time. There are a lot of great artists, and the fact that we did that in such a short period of time was a huge blessing.”
Read the entire interview here. For those who touted the performance as a ‘Gaga ripoff’, Gibson’s inclusion certainly comes as the explanatory piece of the puzzle.