<\/p>\n
Popular <\/strong>rapper and media personality, Michael Stephens, aka Ruggedman, has urged fans to stop pressuring celebrities to advocate for social change on their behalf.\n<\/p>\n Speaking in an interview with Sunday Scoop,<\/strong> the veteran entertainer maintained that while fans can make requests, they have no right to impose such expectations on public figures.\n<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, it is not right for fans to pressure celebrities to use their platforms for social change. You can ask them, but you can\u2019t pressure them. I hear some people say, \u2018we buy their music,\u2019 and assume that\u2019s reason enough for a celebrity to speak up.\n<\/p>\n \u201cMusic is a product you are buying. You get entertained by it; it\u2019s a service. If that\u2019s the case, why aren\u2019t they pressuring restaurant owners or other service providers to do the same?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ruggedman stressed that citizens should instead direct their demands toward elected officials who are responsible for governance.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe people they really need to pressure are their local government chairmen, governors, senators, and the president. These are public servants who owe them life-changing service. Fans can ask celebrities to lend their voices, but the people they have every right to demand accountability from are those in government,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n The rapper, who is also an actor and content creator, noted that he no longer pays attention to criticism about being vocal.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t tell people what to want. Wanting something is one thing, but whether they will get it is another. I have contributed a lot to the Nigerian music industry, especially the rap scene.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI have faced criticism almost throughout my career, so I\u2019m used to it. I have developed a thick skin, but that doesn\u2019t mean I ignore constructive criticism,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n Reflecting on the nature of public opinion, he added that many successful acts were once heavily criticised.\n<\/p>\n He said, \u201cI have seen artistes get mocked early in their careers and later praised by the same people because they didn\u2019t give up. Whatever you do, you will be criticised. But as long as you are doing something positive, don\u2019t let criticism stop you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source punchng.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Popular rapper and media personality, Michael Stephens, aka Ruggedman, has urged fans to stop pressuring celebrities to advocate for social change on their behalf. Speaking in an interview with Sunday Scoop, the veteran entertainer maintained that while fans can make requests, they have no right to impose such expectations on public figures. \u201cOf course, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2340429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[431596,435036,24386,317204,453577,453578,442798,390579,453579,406740],"class_list":["post-2340428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-celebrity-activism","tag-celebrity-responsibility","tag-entertainment-news","tag-fans","tag-governance","tag-michael-stephens","tag-nigerian-music","tag-public-figures","tag-ruggedman","tag-social-change"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Stop-Forcing-Activism-on-Celebrities.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2340430,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340428\/revisions\/2340430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2340429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}