Charlton Heston v. Ice-T's Cop Killer and Time Warner

Charlton Heston was a great American who always stood up for what he thought was right, no matter what the personal cost to himself. Back in the 60's he stood next to and marched with Martin Luther King Jr. when it was not the popular thing to do. He not only talked the talk, he walked the walk; he was a man of character.
-jbranstetter04

HESTON TAKING ON TIME WARNER'S PROMOTION OF "COP KILLER" ALBUM
(Conversation between host Tony Snow and Charlton Heston)

SNOW: "You have one of the great voices in the entertainment world. A few years ago, you showed up at a Time Warner stockholders meeting and started reading the lyrics from a rap album and just froze everybody in their tracks."

HESTON: "That was that terrible album by Ice T called 'Cop Killer.' And I'm very proud of this, I really am. I owned some Time Warner stock and I went in and confronted their full board meeting and read the lyrics. I can't repeat them on television."

SNOW: "No, you can't."

HESTON: "And I shamed Time Warner, the largest entertainment conglomerate in the world, into firing Ice T and dropping the album. Now, he threatened to kill me. He hasn't done that yet."

SNOW: "I believe your quote was something like 'Let him try.'"

HESTON: "Well, maybe I scared him. And I haven't gotten a job from Warner Brothers since or a good notice in Time, but I'm as proud of that as anything I've ever done."



A few years ago, I heard about a -- a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer," celebrating the ambushing and of murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the country -- in the world. Police across the country were outraged. And rightfully so. At least one of them had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the -- the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills, and I owned some shares of Time/Warner at the time, so I decided to attend the meeting.

What I did was against the advice of my family and my colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer" -- every vicious, vulgar, instructional word: I got my 12-Gauge sawed-off. I got my headlights turned off. I'm about to bust some shots off. I'm about to dust some cops off.

It got worse, a lot worse. Now, I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyrics brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing the two 12-year-old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore: She pushed her butt against my --

No. No, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in stunned silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps outside, one of them said, "We can't print that, you know." "I know," I said, "but Time/Warner is still selling it."

Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner Brothers, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you have to be willing to act, not just talk.

• Category

  News & Politics

[desotoguitar]

Heston spoke at NRA conventions after mass killings at columbine CO. and a child killing in flint MI.. He had no problem with gun violence then but as long as Ice Tea was black and using gun violence in an art form he had a problem with that. Heston was a Reagan era racist fraud just like the rest of these reactionary white losers that are losing their white dominated country.

[jbranstetter04]

After the Columbine killings, the NRA closed its annual meeting early—which had been planned for ever a year—they only conducted the business that was mandated by law. Normally the meeting is 3 days with many events, including a gun show, but it was cancelled. New York state law requires the annual meeting, and also requires 10 days notice to change it, and with only 11 days to change it, the NRA could not contact the the thousands involved in time. Don't believe everything the fat man says.

[SEB1991SEB]

I've just read the lyrics and listened to the song about the sodomy, and I don't think Charlton Heston understood the lyrics right. I'm pretty sure Ice-T only mentions Tipper Gore's nieces at one point in the song, and then talks about sodomising someone else later in the song.

Also the cop killer song was only about killing racist cops, rather than every cop. It just seems to him that every cop is like that, cos he's probably experienced a lot of racism.

[jbranstetter04]

Are you justifying the killing of racist cops here?

[fabes0011]

i think commenter is making a point. But look at the shit of the US govt and the police defending the dictators, sorry politicians, and the corporatists using govt to run their businesses during these occupy movements + other situations. This goes on whilst the US govt + politicians preaching + coerce others to follow 'freedom, 'liberty', 'democracy', 'capitalism'.

[jbranstetter04]

Your points are well taken, but the fact is that we as a country are not perfect, nor have we ever been perfect. We used to have slaves in this country! People literally owned other human beings! We are much better now and getting better all the time. We need to work with what we have and make it better. But do not ever forget that we in this country have a lot, I mean a whole lot.

[thunder5119]

Maybe he believed he really was Moses?!?!?!

[thunder5119]

Guess he didn't believe in the first amendment to the constitution of the US of A. For all of his support for the right to bear arms, you'd think he would have remembered THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. Now I don't agree with the lyrics, but I will defend til my death the right to say or sing them--THAT'S WHY IT'S THE 1st Admendment!

[hollywood21639]

Charlton Heston missed his calling he should've been a rapper.

[Violet Deliriums]

No, actually your statement in which you seem to easily put blacks into a little box and suggest they all think the same way that is racist. It is not as simple as you seem to want to think, and it is your stereotyping that is racist.

Ice-T did not write the song to condone violence. He wrote the song as a warning to police that if they continue to allow police brutality to go unchecked, someone is going to snap.

[keechmabreeks]

yip you could've heard an echo when you left the room,at your own house after the Moore interview.and what's all this ice t shite he's talking about,it was Bodycount that Ice t sang with.if only heston where around today to see what a big TV star Ice has become.yeah heston you really took him down.

[renasmile]

Mr. Heston never condoned gun violence it is the Black community that condones it and uses it on themselves every day. Many blacks are more racist than any others in the country, and they are too ignorant to realize it. You all kill more of your own kind than any other.

[1960jefbot]

well done Mr.Heston, well done.

[InternetSavage]

The only fascists are brainwashed control freaks like yourself and the reason why Amerika now sucks!

[drracketboy]

Ice-T was just exercising his 2nd Amendment rights. What do you think people want guns for? The second amendment is for those who think the government is oppressing them. Ice-T apparently thought just that.