Lauryn Hill Responds to Tax Evasion Charges
Following last week’s news of Lauryn Hill‘s tax evasion, the singer took to Tumblr to address her side of the situation. Hill reportedly skipped out on income taxes from 2005 to 2007, failing to file papers for an estimated $1.8 million in earnings.
“For the past several years, I have remained what others would consider underground,” she wrote. “I did this in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.”
She continued that her success forced her to remove herself from “a more mainstream and public life,” turning “away from a lifestyle that required distortion and compromise as a means for maintaining it . . . During this period of crisis, much was said about me both slanted and inaccurate, by those who had become dependent on my creative force, yet unwilling to fully acknowledge the importance of my contribution, nor compensate me equitably for it.”
Feeling her “potential to work” was in danger, Hill said, “I did whatever needed to be done in order to insulate my family from the climate of hostility, false entitlement, manipulation, racial prejudice, sexism and ageism that I was surrounded by.
“There were no exotic trips, no fleet of cars, just an all out war for safety, integrity, wholeness and health, without mistreatment, denial, and/or exploitation.”
Hill ended by maintaining her commitment to clearing up the situation, and by telling fans she has not abandoned them. “I abandoned greed, corruption, and compromise, never you, and never the artistic gifts and abilities that sustained me,” she wrote.
Hill is scheduled for a June 29th court date in Newark.