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BlackBerry and Alicia Keys are ending their partnership. The singer has been global creative director for the maker of smartphones for the past year but The New York Times reports that the partnership is coming to an end this month.
A statement emailed to the paper from a company rep gave no reason for the end of the arrangement saying only, “BlackBerry and Alicia Keys have completed our yearlong collaboration.”
Billboard notes that Keys’ role with the company was like those other celebrities have taken on with other companies — will.i.am with Coca-Cola, Justin Timberlake with Bud Light Platinum and Key’s husband Swizz Beatz with Monster Audio, but says the partnership was rocky from the start. For example, one project Keys was involved with was the company’s Keep Moving program which was aimed at musicians, writers, artists and filmmakers. But the magazine notes the project was foundering by mid-year and now all the executives with whom Keys collaborated on it are gone from the troubled company. “She got on a sinking ship,” a source close to Keys tells Billboard.
Keys was introduced as creative director at the launch of the BlackBerry 10 smartphone line last year and appeared at several promotional events for the company. One month after the announcement, she suffered an embarrassing moment when it was publicized that she sent a tweet from her iPhone, which of course is produced by BlackBerry competitor, Apple.
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio
