NEW YORK – The show must go on for the National Football League (NFL), just without Rihanna.
CBS pulled the singer’s opening theme song from Thursday night’s broadcast of the Ravens-Steelers game, one of many programming changes made in the wake of the Ray Rice scandal, Sports Illustrated reported.
Rihanna, whose song Run This Town was set to play over a narration by actor Don Cheadle, made headlines in 2009 as a victim of domestic violence at the hands of then-boyfriend Chris Brown. Rice was cut by the Ravens and suspended indefinitely this week by the NFL after video of him punching his fiancee Janay Palmer unconscious was released by TMZ.
In addition to Rihanna, CBS also scrapped a comedic segment planned for the broadcast and instead opened its pre-game show with a report from Norah O’Donnell, the CBS This Morning anchor who interviewed NFL commissioner shortly after the latest Rice video surfaced.
“We thought journalistically, and from a tone standpoint, we needed to have the appropriate tone and coverage,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told Sports Illustrated.
“A lot of the production elements we wanted in the show are being eliminated because of time or tone.” (New York Daily News)
