Carey plays Saudi show, despite pleas

Mariah Carey’s team defended her decision to perform in Saudi Arabia and the show took place on Thursday night after pleas for her to cancel the concert were rejected.

The concert came after the Saudi Arabian government began to ease up on its limitations of entertainment entities, and Carey’s camp argued that the singer saw her performance there as progress. The singer has received a wave of pushback since her performance in the country was announced last week, with the activist group Code Pink urging Carey not to perform in “one of the world’s most repressive, misogynist, gender-segregated countries.”