After Brazil's MTV was inundated by over 20,000 emails from angry viewers threatening a boycott to the TV station if they didn't fire their presenter Daniella Cicarelli, the infamous celebrity came to public to say that she has nothing to do with the cause for the viewers fury: the blocking of YouTube in Brazil decided by a Brazilian judge.
The ban of the video sharing site, which is owned by Google, was decided by São Paulo judge Enio Santarelli Zuliani in response to a lawsuit asking that a five-minute video showing Cicarelli and her boyfriend apparently making love on a beach in Spain, be taken off the Internet. The steamy video was made by a paparazzo last September.
The MTV presenter says now that she has nothing to do with the latest lawsuit and that the only one responsible for the court procedure was her boyfriend, Tato Malzoni, who works, for Merril Lynch.
Cicarelli, who is a fashion model and the former wife of soccer player Ronaldo, told Jornal da Globo, a TV news program, that she feels wronged.
According to the TV presenter, Malzoni and she had decided several months ago to file suits separately. Cicarelli said that all she asked from the courts was that the video was not shown on TV.
She told that she was taken by surprise when she read on the Internet last Thursday that YouTube might be blocked in Brazil. Cicarelli went as far as to lament the ban of the site but not as far as to criticize the Justice: "Who am I to judge what is Justice?"
She assured that she wanted the video case to be history by now and that she had no interest in creating polemics since that would only harm her career. Cicarelli said that she has talked to the boyfriend since YouTube was blocked and then unblocked, but wouldn't tell what they talked about, adding: "I respect his position."
The model ended up her interview saying that she doesn't feel that she owes an apology to anyone since whatever happened was not her fault. She also expressed her hope that people will understand that she was not responsible for the lawsuit and its aftermath. Malzoni, however, still hasn't told his side of the story.
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MTV Reaction
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Brazil MTV released a note commenting on the temporary ban of YouTube in Brazil. The TV station repeats the version that it was the boyfriend and not their employee who filed the lawsuit against YouTube and professes its love for freedom of expression and hate for censorship. But MTV doesn't mention YouTube by name:
"Concerning the case of the temporary blocking of a videos sharing site, MTV Brasil explains:
"The lawsuit that prompted the judicial decision to block the above mentioned site was not filed by Daniella Cicarelli but by her boyfriend, Renato Malzoni Filho. The judicial decision, as the chief judge who ordered it explained, was misinterpreted, and he himself has already decided expressly to unblock the service.
"MTV Brasil has always repudiated censorship and always fought for freedom of expression, being recognized by its social and political campaigns. For this reason it cannot accept the gist of the angry and offensive protests that have been asking for the boycott to the presenter and to the TV station itself.
"Although covered with legitimacy, most of these protests basically, deep down, share the same lack of values that they wish to attack because it foments the censorship to a television channel.
"Moreover, we believe that there are many other matters begging for protests in Brazil and MTV has always been open to debate them.
"MTV Brasil is against all kind of freedom restriction. From sites blocking to censoring people and TV channels."