Irish farmer asks Rihanna to stop shooting her video in his field and put some clothes ~ The News 360°

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Irish farmer asks Rihanna to stop shooting her video in his field and put some clothes

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Alan Graham, 61, said that he had never heard of Rihanna before one of her people called to ask if the sexy pop star could shoot part of her "We Found Love" video on his farm in Northern Ireland.

"Someone explained she was as big as it gets as far as pop stars were concerned," he told British newspaper The Telegraph. "I am a bit illiterate about those issues."

Graham, who owns 60 acres just outside of Bangor, Ireland, said she could. He even pitched in to help the crew, using his tractor to pull some recording equipment out of the mud and filling in a hole in his field with some straw. The field in which they were filming is near a busy road, and traffic quickly came to a standstill as fans stopped to gawk at the 23-year-old sexy superstar.

But when Graham was heading home later that day, he spotted the singer sashaying through the barley wearing a barely-there red bikini. And that was too much for the devoutly Christian father-of-four and local political representative to put up with.

"I realized things had got to a stage which were not acceptable to me," he said. "Things became inappropriate and I asked the film crew to stop."

His wife told CNN that the problem was more than just the bikini—or, rather, that it was less.

"What she was doing became more inappropriate," said Mrs. Graham, who refused to give reporters her first name. "When she started to go topless, that's what Alan was particularly objecting to—things were getting out of hand. There was a man as well, and the behavior was getting more inappropriate. ... It wasn't the sort of thing Alan wanted young people to see on his land. We are Christians."

Graham agreed. "If someone wants to borrow my field and things become inappropriate, then I say: 'Enough is enough. You are not entitled to do that'."

The farmer told The Telegraph that there was no "firm arrangement" about how they'd use the field, and he feels that he didn't make his own expectations clear to Rihanna and her crew. "There were no hard feelings," he said.

"There was no agreement as such beforehand," he told reporters. "I have not received any payment at this moment in time and I don't know if I will be paid. I don't want to say what I said to Rihanna or what she said to me. We had a conversation. We shook hands and parted company on good terms. I found her very gracious, and I hope she understands where I'm coming from. I wish her well."

The pop star, who was born in Barbados but also has Irish ancestry, was in Ireland this week to perform three sold-out shows at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast.