When CBS pulled Rihanna's NFL intro to its first-ever Thursday Night Football telecast last week, it was a questionable but more or less accepted move.
Some felt it was unfair to punish Rihanna, a domestic violence survivor, but given the astonishing Ray Rice video and controversy, CBS nixed her intro.
Now that they want to slide her music back in this week, however? Well, there's at least one individual who seems pretty unhappy with the decision:
Last week, CBS said playing a pop song didn't fit with the serious tone of its hour-long pregame show, almost half of which was dedicated to Rice.
The first 25 minutes focused exclusively on the player's release by the Baltimore Ravens, who were playing that night, and indefinite suspension.
In the aftermath of the video of him striking his now-wife Janay Palmer, the pregame show coverage included a plea by James Brown to stop domestic violence.
"We thought journalistically and from a tone standpoint, we had to have the appropriate tone and coverage," CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said.
It wasn't about Rihanna personally, he said, but "a lot of the production elements we wanted in the show are being eliminated because of time or tone."
The February 2009 incident in which Chris Brown beat Rihanna senseless before the Grammy Awards had to have been a factor for CBS, however.
Like Rice, Brown received what many felt was a wrist slap.
Brown was also taken back by Rihanna, albeit years later and for only a brief period before they split again, offering another parallel to Rice and Palmer.
Either way, if the network was going to pull her song, they should have kept it pulled. Trying to put it back in the rotation this week is just nonsensical.
In doing so, they're both punishing Rihanna for being the victim and also implying that the domestic violence issue was a one-week thing that has now blown over.
Not very well played, CBS.
Rihanna poses with Instagram photos. In Complex!
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