The director that got Linda Ronstadt banned from performing: “They won’t hire me back”
Of all the people you’d expect to be cancelled or have a controversial furore around them, Linda Ronstadt doesn’t exactly top the list.
So when, in 2004, she said she kept “hoping that if I’m annoying enough to them, they won’t hire me back,” it was more than clear that she wanted to ruffle the feathers of whoever was in the firing line. At the end of the day, it boiled down to the fact that she was standing up for what she believed in, and if there was anything that being a woman in the music industry had taught her, she would not bow down to pressure.
What gives this whole story a slightly comical air, however, is that the scene of the crime was a Las Vegas casino. Sure, it would have seen a fair share of fraud and robberies in its time, but politically-charged statements from pop stars were perhaps a more unusual type of offence to take place there. Nevertheless, Ronstadt was treated as much like a heavy-handed mobster as all the rest.
After all, who’d have imagined that the sweet-eyed singer would have been as much of a fan of Fahrenheit 9/11 as she was? Political scorn and wrath towards George Bush’s administration were in no short supply back then, but putting it on the big screen had landed the film’s director, Michael Moore, in a lot of hot water. Ronstadt’s public support of him, therefore, was like plunging in the deep end.
While performing in Vegas’s Aladdin Casino that July, Ronstadt urged her audience to see the documentary, calling Moore a “great American patriot” and “someone who was seeking the truth”. But according to the casino manager, as soon as those words left her mouth, the scenes turned “very ugly” and “all bedlam broke loose”.
The way they spoke about it, you’d have thought it was a violent act of political extremism Ronstadt had committed, not just giving a movie recommendation. But nevertheless, with the manager’s words of, “As long as I’m here, she’s not going to play,” ringing in her ears, she had mastered exactly what she set out to achieve, and the mission was complete.
Naturally, the ban would have created a fair few enemies for Ronstadt, not least the bookers for the casino who were subsequently under orders to firmly cross her off their list of potential stars. The person it did catch the attention of, though, was Moore himself. Obviously, he seemed pretty charmed by the whole thing.
“For you to throw Linda Ronstadt off the premises because she dared to say a few words in support of me and my film is simply stupid and un-American,” he said in a statement. This was followed by an ultimatum – or a thinly-veiled threat, depending on how you look at it. “Invite her back, and I’ll join her in singing ‘America the Beautiful’ on your stage.”
Naturally, the invitation to take the newfound singing duo up on their kind offer must have got lost in the post, and Ronstadt never did return to the casino in question. She may have lost a bit of money and adoration in the process, but she did so with her morals and principles intact. For her, that was the most important thing.
