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Wyclef Jean: Responds to Sean Penn, Pras at New York City Concert

By Bridget Bland on Sep 7th 2010 2:39PM

Filed under: News, Celeb Updates

Wyclef Jean is now out of the running for president of Haiti, but he’s still unhappy with some of the celebrities who spoke out against his bid.

The former Fugees rapper-singer, who was declared ineligible to run by Haitian electoral officials for not meeting the five-year resident requirement, has now lashed out against Academy Award winner Sean Penn and his former band mate Pras, both of whom criticized Clef’s lack of experience in politics.Jean, born Nel Ust Wyclef Jean, remixed his 2004 song ‘President’ to reflect his disdain for the two men.

“I got a message for Sean Penn: Maybe he ain’t see me in Haiti because he was too busy sniffing cocaine,” Jean charged at the Hot 97’s On The Reggae Tip concert in New York over the weekend.

He sang, “I got a message for Praswell, even though you don’t want to support me, I got love for you, even though you only kicked 8 bars in the Fugees.”

Despite the fact that Jean raised millions of dollars for earthquake-relief efforts through his Yele Haiti foundation, Penn was vocal over the past two months about the Grammy winner’s actual presence on the ground in the weeks following the tragedy.

Penn wrote in a Huffington Post column, “I was there for those six months after the earthquake, and so many of us on the ground wondered where he was when that kind of attention was so necessary and absent, and why he was NOT helping to keep this desperate situation in the news.”

He added, “None among us felt or expressed anger toward it, but rather a universal sadness for his silence, as he is America’s most admired cultural link to Haiti.”

Pras did not point fingers at his former friend for not being around during the disaster relief cleanup, but he did say that he thought Jean had lost sight of the bigger goals he should be fighting for as president.

In a recent interview with MTV News, Pras questioned, “He talks about health care, he talks about education, he talks about infrastructure. …But how are you gonna get to that point?”

He added, “There’s a short-term goal that needs to be addressed and there’s a long-term goal. To be honest with you, the short term is probably more important than the long term. And he didn’t even mention the short term.”