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Rihanna and Floyd Mayweather Did a Gag at the BET Awards 2015 and People Hated It

Domestic violence is no joking matter, no matter what

Jun 29, 2015 09:19 GMT  ·  By
Floyd Mayweather is gagged by Rihanna at the BET Awards 2015
   Floyd Mayweather is gagged by Rihanna at the BET Awards 2015

The BET Awards 2015 were last night and they’re already the talk of the town on social media. BET thought it would be funny if they sat Rihanna next to boxing champ Floyd Mayweather and if, later in the evening, they did a gag together, where she would tape his mouth shut.

One thing BET forgot or chose to ignore was that both had a history with domestic violence, she as a survivor and he as an aggressor. The Internet never forgets this kind of things, as the tweets below will show.

BET is too thirsty for attention, shameless

In 2009, Rihanna was attacked by then-boyfriend Chris Brown and beaten to a pulp over a phone text she’d read on his phone. He banged with her head against the dashboard, punched and bit her, and threatened to toss her out of the speeding car, all the while threatening to kill her.

The case was highly controversial, not only because it involved one of the most beloved couples in showbiz, but also because Rihanna kept going back to Chris for months afterwards.

Mayweather, on the other hand, has at least 7 assaults against 5 women, including the mother of his children and random strangers. The women who dared to file a complaint against him eventually refused to pursue it, with reports saying that they were either intimidated or bought off.

Mayweather has a fierce reputation both inside the ring and outside of it, especially with women for the latter.

So when the camera kept zooming in on Rihanna sitting next to him at the BET Awards last night, people on social media were quick to point the finger and accuse the network of being thirsty and shameless in their dash for ratings and publicity.

Rihanna was also seen with a roll of duct tape in her hands, but no one knew what that was all about.

Rihanna and Floyd do gag, the Internet isn’t really amused

As you can see in the Twitter video below, at one point, the Barbadian pop star used the duct tape to tape shut Floyd’s mouth. He also had his hands bound and seemed powerless.

The gag was obviously pre-planned, but many of the commenters online missed its funny side: domestic violence should not be turned into the punchline for a joke, if that’s what it was, they said.

Others simply missed the punchline altogether, and still blamed BET for going too far in sitting the two side by side.

However, there were also those who thought it was hilarious to have a woman shut Floyd up, especially given his temper and force. In the BET gag, they saw confirmation that Rihanna remains the baddest gal around in showbiz, so they obviously saw nothing wrong with the joke.