Hip-hop icon Lauryn Hill has released a statement addressing her recent tax problems with the IRS.
Last week, TMZ reported that the former Fugee failed to file her federal income tax returns from the year 2005 through to 2007. She reportedly earned more than $1.8 million.
Like so many other celebrities before her, Hill is being charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to file taxes. She could face up to three years in prison and fined $300,000.
In a lengthy message posted on her tumblr, Hill says those three years was a time of withdrawal for herself and her family.
Read her statement below.
For the past several years, I have remained what others would consider underground. I did this in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda. Having put the lives and needs of other people before my own for multiple years, and having made hundreds of millions of dollars for certain institutions, under complex and sometimes severe circumstances, I began to require growth and more equitable treatment, but was met with resistance. I entered into my craft full of optimism (which I still possess), but immediately saw the suppressive force with which the system attempts to maintain it’s control over a given paradigm. I’ve seen people promote addiction, use sabotage, black listing, media bullying and any other coercion technique they could, to prevent artists from knowing their true value, or exercising their full power. These devices of control, no matter how well intentioned (or not), can have a devastating outcome on the lives of people, especially creative types who must grow and exist within a certain environment and according to a certain pace, in order to live and create optimally.
I kept my life relatively simple, even after huge successes, but it became increasingly obvious that certain indulgences and privileges were expected to come at the expense of my free soul, free mind, and therefore my health and integrity. So I left a more mainstream and public life, in order to wean both myself, and my family, away from a lifestyle that required distortion and compromise as a means for maintaining it. During this critical healing time, there were very few people accessible to me who had not already been seduced or affected by this machine, and therefore who could be trusted to not try and influence or coerce me back into a dynamic of compromise. Individual growth was expected to take place unnaturally, or stagnated outright, subject to marketing and politics. Addressing critical issues like pop culture cannibalism or its manipulation of the young at the expense of everything, was frowned upon and discouraged by limiting funding, or denying it outright. When one has a prolific creative output like I did/do, and is then forced to stop, the effects can be dangerous both emotionally and psychologically, both for the artist and those in need of that resource. It was critically important that I find a suitable pathway within which to exist, without being distorted or economically strong-armed.
Read her full statement here.
Anyone can tell from reading her statement that she is in desperate fear for her life; and the music industry mafia is using scare tactics to strong arm her and she was just trying to make sure she never ran out of $ to a point where they could attach their fangs to her & she’d be helpless. She is obviously not a criminal but the govt can be bought & is now punishing her as a compensation for not protecting her like the govt vows to do for us. Praise Ms. Lauryn Hill for not folding to those gangsters! I admire you since DAY ONE! Shame on the bullies who root for her collapse. You peons are not worthy to be spit on by her courageous saliva. Love you, Ms. Hill! People need to rally behind and support her, lest they Michael Jackson Whitney her. Come on these are devils in that music bizness! the DEVIL and all you punk entertainers who allow yourself to be muzzled silent (while acting tough and bad) as she fights for your freedom to create unmuzzled by Satan. come on you aggressive herbs; Lauryn Hill is far more tough than any of you gun-waving stooges. And to you cowardly r & b singers who admire her, SPEAK UP! This woman’s life is on the line! If you doubt the music industry mafia is in bed with the I.R.S. think back to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich denouncing Bank of America; then being arrested the VERY NEXT DAY! This is no different. Lauryn last week spoke out against music industry intimidation tactics at Summer Jam; & boom, the I.R.S. on her! Tila Tequila and Randy Quaid are being menaced by similar gangsters to the ones menacing Ms. Hill