Lauryn Hill has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately. This week a federal judge postponed the Grammy winner’s tax evasion sentencing on a promise that she would pay the $554,000 she owes in restitution. Hill has only paid $50,000 of that amount, reports the Associated Press.
Hill pleaded guilty last year to not paying federal taxes on $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007.
“This is not someone who stands before the court penniless,” said United States Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo in court in Newark expressing her disappointment with Hill.
Added to that was news that L-Boogie allegedly hadn’t paid her rent and was about to be evicted from her South Orange, New Jersey mansion. Hill responded by saying the allegations were false and that she has never been behind on her rent. “Won’t it be great when real journalism returns to replace inaccurate tabloid harassment,” she wrote on her Tumblr page.
True or not, one thing we can all agree on is Lauryn Hill is no longer a media darling. If we’re not talking about her children’s father Rohan Marley’s troubling ways, we’re scrutinizing her financial records. But maybe, just maybe, we could “lift her up with love” as Clutch Magazine writer Evette Dionne suggests.
“We did it Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson as well,” writes Dionne. “We celebrate the accomplishments of entertainers and also highlight their downfalls, taking pleasure in measuring their flaws against our own.”
Where do you stand, and what do you think L-Boogie should do next? [poll id=301261]