(Newswire.net — February 28, 2015) — When public figures, VIP’s, models or actors raise their voice for or against something, in many cases they are paid to do so. The last thing event organizers expect is to be stood up by a celebrity that has been paid to attend.
Ecuadorian rainforest residents gathered to protest against Chevron and they expected to have Sharon Stone there to support their protest. Organizers say she was paid $275,000 to attend the protest, plus $77,000 in travel costs, including first-class airfare tickets and luxury hotel suites for herself and her three companions.
This was the first time in more than two decades that Ecuadorians took a steps to fight against Chevron’s pollution of the Amazon Rainforests. Ecuador is one of the poorest countries in the world and for the first time they followed the lead of their western counterparts and invested in a PR campaign.
Ecuadorians were devasted when they realized that the famous actress never even boarded the first-class flight.
According to a Bloomberg report, Sharon Stone and her talent agency have been accused in a federal lawsuit in New York, of not returning the money she received from the Equador environmental organization.
Chevron stood up for Sharon Stone by claiming that there is fraud behind all this, and that activists are staging the events.
“The fact that the Republic of Ecuador’s PR firm is suing Sharon Stone for not participating in a government-sponsored anti-Chevron stunt is further evidence that this case is nothing but a fraud,” Chevron spokesman Morgan Crinklaw said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News.
“From paid celebrities to bribed court officials to the ghostwritten judgment, the case against Chevron in Ecuador is a well-funded and manufactured extortion scheme,” he said.
According to Ecuadorian authorities, the oil company spilled 16.8 million gallons of oil in the Amazon rainforest. Ecuador is suing for compensation.
Anti-Chevron Day was organized by Amazon Watch, with an aim to raise awareness of the suffering of the local communities affected by Chevron’s profiteering.