M.I.A. attends the 68th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin.
Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
In an interview with Huck, M.I.A. discussed her new documentary, MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A., and the fall-out of her infamous 2012 NFL appearance, when she flicked her middle finger at the camera on live television, causing a stir in the event's wide audience. In the film, she says, "is a very tiny bit of what happened to me in real life" after the incident, which earned her a $16.6 million lawsuit from the NFL.
“If you’re talking about racism and sexism, that moment in my life showed the cracks in everyone I knew," she says of the Super Bowl. "I was at Roc Nation at the time and Jay Z was managing me. The lawsuit was so ridiculous, it proposed that they would keep one hundred percent of my earnings for the rest of my life if I ever earned more than $2 million dollars. Jay Z was, like, 'you should sign that shit' and I was, like, 'no.'"
The film apparently uses the incident as a turning point in her career. She told Huck was shocking upon her first viewing, but warmed up to the decade-long project eventually.
MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A. is in select theaters now. Read the full interview at Huck.
