A few months ago, Wylcef Jean threw his hat into the ring to be a nominee in Haiti’s presidential election. Wyclef made major waves in America – he is perhaps the best-known Haitian in the American media’s mind, so he got lots of play. Unfortunately, in the end, Wyclef was ineligible to be a presidential nominee because of some regulations regarding residency – it seemed Wyclef had been living in new Jersey too long, and not Port-au-Prince. So just like that, Wyclef’s bid was over. And now it’s time for Wylcef to call out the haters.

Clef’s ex-Fugee friend Pras made an impassioned and well-spoken argument for why Clef shouldn’t be Haiti’s president, but one of the biggest cut-downs was made by Sean Penn, who sat down with Larry King. Sean has become something of an honorary Haitian, and has spent months working in Haiti post-earthquake. Here’s part of what Sean said after Wyclef announced his bid:

I feel that it’s important to say that while President Preval himself has made very clear the value of Wyclef’s voice as a song writer, as someone with whom the youth is quite enamored with, and appointing him, not as he said electing him, ambassador at large, which took place, in fact, three years ago, which does not qualify him as someone who has had residency for the five consecutive years necessary — but that’s an issue of rule of law that we will or won’t respect in our donations, or lack thereof, to campaigns abroad.

… I’m not accusing Wyclef Jean of being on opportunist. I don’t know the man. But I think it’s extremely important that we pay great attention to both the individuals in the United States who are enamored with him, maybe not for his political strengths, and in particular for corporate interests that are enamored with him, and those that may themselves be opportunists on the back of the Haitian people.

Right now, I worry that this is a campaign that is more about a vision of flying around the world, talking to people, as he said. It’s certainly not one of the youth drafting him… What the Haitian people need now is a leader who is genuinely willing to sacrifice.

And one of the reasons I don’t know very much about Wyclef Jean is I haven’t seen or heard anything of him in these last six months that I’ve been in Haiti. I think he’s an important voice. I hope he doesn’t sacrifice that voice by taking the eye off the very devastating realities on the ground and the very difficult strategic future that it’s got in putting itself back together…

[From CNN]

So it’s clear that Sean at that point had never met Wyclef, and probably had no interest in meeting him either. But now it’s Clef’s turn to give his side of the story for why they never met – apparently, it had something to do with Sean being a cokehead…?

“If I was president….I got a message for Sean Penn, maybe he ain’t see me in Haiti because he was too busy sniffing cocaine. 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 eight bars in the Fugees.”

[From Gawker]

Clef is kind of a whiny little baby, right? It’s not Sean Penn’s fault that Clef didn’t meet the residency requirements. That being said, if Sean is a cokehead, it wouldn’t surprise me. At all.

The Pras dis was rough too, right? UGH. Clef needs to get a grip.