Stellar performances by Rihanna, Al Green, Maxwell, Alicia Keys and Ne-Yo couldn’t draw viewers to the BET Awards on Tuesday night. This year’s awards show which honors the best in African-American music, sports and film, only drew 5.8 million viewers according to Nielsen ratings.
Tuesday night’s ratings was the smallest in the BET franchise’s eight-year run since 2004.
Meanwhile, there are rumors that Clifford Harris aka T.I. was not invited to attend the awards this year even though he’s in LA filming his MTV reality series. We can speculate as to the reason why. If you recall, T.I. was arrested the day of the BET Hip Hop awards last October in Atlanta.
There are also grumblings about the sentence handed down by the feds to Jacob Arabo aka Jacob The Jeweler, this week. Arabo was given a 30-month sentence in Club Fed for lying to federal investigators about his financial dealings with the BMF crime family. He is to begin serving his sentence on January 15, 2009 – the same month T.I. is required to start serving his 9 months for gun collecting.
The difference between the two sentences is that T.I. cooperated with the feds while Arabo lied his ass off to protect himself. A 5-time felon can have 50 guns in his arsenal, but it’s a totally different ball game when you mess around with Uncle Sam’s money.
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