CBS decided to pull pop sensation Rihanna’s song last week from Thursday Night Football, and Rih Rih finally addressed the network this morning in one of her good old fashioned Twitter rips. Initially, every Thursday game was set to open with actor Don Cheadle doing a narration over “Run this Town” by Jay-Z and Rihanna.
With all the Ray Rice domestic violence controversy that transpired last week, however, the network made a decision to cancel the opening number. It was what many considered an obvious PR move after NFL fans took to social media and expressed their discomfort with opening vocals by Rihanna–who also happened to be the victim of a very public domestic violence battle at the hands of Chris Brown in 2009.
This week, CBS is said to resume as originally planned with the song, but that doesn’t cut it for the “Good Girl Gone Bad” entertainer. She expressed her disgust this morning:
In a statement from this morning, CBS announced the pre-game programming is being revamped and that Rihanna’s song is being replaced with a new track.
“Beginning this Thursday, we will be moving in a different direction with some elements of our Thursday Night Football open,” CBS Sports said in a statement. “We will be using our newly created ‘Thursday Night Football’ theme music to open our game broadcast.”
Rihanna is reportedly one of the singers being considered to anchor the 49th Super Bowl Halftime Show being held next year in Arizona. Or maybe ‘was’ is more likely at this point.