{"id":71451,"date":"2021-06-22T14:29:29","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T18:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=71451"},"modified":"2021-06-22T14:29:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T18:29:29","slug":"scoop-opera-star-pretty-yende-details-shocking-encounter-french-customs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2021\/06\/22\/scoop-opera-star-pretty-yende-details-shocking-encounter-french-customs\/","title":{"rendered":"THE SCOOP | Opera Star Pretty Yende Details Shocking Encounter With French Customs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pretty
Pretty Yende by Gregor Hohenberg \u2013 Sony Music Ent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

South African opera star Pretty Yende took to social media<\/a> to talk about her shock at being held by customs at Charles de Gaulle Airport. On June 21, as she described it, Yende was passing through French Customs on her way back to Paris for her fourth performance in La Sonnambula at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Champs-Elys\u00e9es.<\/p>\n

She described the incident, where she says she was strip searched and briefly detained, as racial discrimination. Yende details what happened, and how it left her, in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice brutality is real for someone who look like me,\u201d she began. \u201cI am one of the very very luck ones to be alive to see the day today even with il-treatment (sic) and outrageous racial discrimination and psychological torture and very offensive racial comments in a country that I\u2019ve given so much of my heart and virtue to and still determined to do so as a legal International citizen on the global stage community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yende said she was left shaken by the encounter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still shaken thinking that I am one in a million who managed to come out of that situation alive because of one phone call I thought of at the time as I was in shock and traumatized and couldn\u2019t believe what was happening to me,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cThey took all my belongings including my cellphone and told me to write down phone numbers of my close family and friends to call with a landline phone they had on the retention cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Yende, she was told she was a prisoner, and would be transferred to a detention facility. She was strip searched and locked into a cell in Charles de Gaulle customs area.<\/p>\n

\n

Mon amour Paris, merci bien. You really know how to make this girl blush. A demain soir @theatre_champs_elysees ? #ovations<\/a> #standingovations<\/a> #lasonnambula<\/a> #paris<\/a> #prettyjourney<\/a> ? @elenaanacher pic.twitter.com\/1nYjFzI4zd<\/a><\/p>\n

— Pretty Yende (@PrettyYende) June 21, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n