Texas theater chain bans Madonna after reported texting incident
A Texas-based theater chain has banned Madonna after the pop star was apparently admonished for rudely texting during a premiere screening.
Madonna was reportedly texting up a storm while attending the New York Film Festival premiere of 12 Years A Slave last week and reacted in a rather spectacularly annoyed manner when asked to stop (‘It’s for business … enslaver!”).
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain has long had a strict no-talking and anti-texting policy for its theaters, and will eject any patron that violates the policy. So when word of the incident reached Alamo founder and CEO Tim League, he tweeted (below) that Madonna would no longer be welcome at the chain until she “apologizes to movie fans.”
Asked by EW if he was serious about the ban — at one point while defending his stance on Twitter he had called it a joke — League replied late Saturday, “Yeah, I’m serious, but I don’t think it really affects her life that much.”
League pointed out his initial tweet was an “offhand joke, a spur of the moment 140 characters” and was “more of a means to get the issue out there, that it is rude to text during movies.”
“But now that it seems to have taken hold, sure, I’m going to enforce it,” he added.
Madonna has not responded to the reactions or to the rather anecdotal-sounding initial report, details about which can be found here.
Below are League’s tweets and the Alamo’s NSFW anti-texting message that plays before some R-rated films at its theaters. When this video first hit the Internet a couple years ago, it became a viral sensation (and yes, the voicemail is real, the story behind it here):