Those of you who know about Cœur de Pirate have been waiting for this, and here it is. We have put together evidence that demonstrates Annaliese Nielsen knowingly produced child pornography in 2007. If she did not knowingly do so, then she knowingly violated U.S. Code § 2257 regulations, in failing to keep records proving that all participants in sexual entertainment are above 18. Child pornography is defined, both in America and Canada, as erotic material depicting someone under the age of 18.

This is Cœur de Pirate

This young woman is at the center of the matter. She is the French-Canadian singer Cœur de Pirate. It caused a minor scandal in the Francophone press when it was discovered that she had posed for nude photos at a younger age. And by younger, we mean as a minor. These photos were posted on Annaliese Nielsen’s own GodsGirls.

Here are the facts we have.

1. Cœur de Pirate was born September 22, 1989, as Béatrice Martin.
2. Nude photos of Béatrice Martin were created in the month of or prior to February 2007, at which time she would have been 17 years old.
3. These photos were hosted on GodsGirls.com from February 2007 until April 2008.
4. GodsGirls.com is run by Annaliese Nielsen.
5. Annaliese Nielsen denies any knowledge of Martin or her photos.

From these facts, we can draw one of two conclusions. One is that Annaliese Nielsen knowingly hosted child pornography. The other is that Annaliese Nielsen willfully disregarded 2257 regulations which, in the eyes of the law, is equivalent to knowingly hosting child pornography.

Facts 1 and 4 are readily available information. Facts 2, 3, and 5 were previously only available in French as the American press has ignored this story. We have provided translations and source links for three articles covering Annaliese Nielsen’s promulgation of child pornography. If you have supported Annaliese Nielsen over the past year despite her treatment of others, perhaps you will finally reconsider your position. Nielsen is a predator and now we have proof.

Source

Photos that make people talk

Before she became Cœur de Pirate, Béatrice Martin posted nude for the website GodsGirls.com. For a year, every time a journalist spoke to her, Béatrice closed like an oyster. Until yesterday, when, after publishing articles on the said photos in The Sun, she agreed to answer our questions.

It was a tense Béatrice Martin who went over to La Presse yesterday. Just to talk about it, she said, makes her heart ache. “These are photos of Béatrice Martin, not Cœur de Pirate,” she said. When I signed my contract with Grosse Boîte in April 2008, and became Cœur de Pirate, I had already bought the photos from GodsGirls.com.”

Why did she pose naked? “I did not do it for money; it does not pay much,” she said. I was coming out of a difficult relationship and I lacked self-confidence. Sites like GodsGirls.com fascinated me because there is a concept behind the pictures. It is precisely for people who have an original look and who have confidence in themselves. This is not porn. I did not do spread eagle on camera.” (editor’s note: legally, it constitutes porn)

If she bought the pictures. it was because she did not like the way her friends looked at her. “So I started writing songs and it helped me to understand a lot. Then I started going out with my boyfriend and it made me realize I was worth a lot more than that. The problem, and it’s really stupid, is that among the subscribers of the site GodsGirls.com who were able to download my photos, there were probably people from Montreal who put them back online when my career began. Since then, there has been daily damage control. We just removed them from a Swedish site, but it took months.”

Today, Beatrice is ashamed of these photos. “I’m afraid it changes people’s perception of my music if they think I’ve done that to draw attention to Cœur de Pirate,” she said. “On the contrary, it could really hurt me. When I come across these pictures, I really want to cry. Imagine the mothers who see this and who will no longer want their children to listen to my music. But these are things that can really happen to anyone, especially in my generation. It is a bit disturbing.”

Source

A child’s heart in a woman’s body

We discovered Béatrice at the Printemps de Bourges, before the Botanical Nights this year. Her single “Comme des Enfants” [“Like Children”] can be heard on the radio while TV indulges in playing the music video, beautiful as the sun.

It all began at the Francofolies de Montréal 2008. A journalist from Inrocks saw her opening for Benjamin Biolay and hyped her up to the point where Barclay, in France signed her on the spot. In Quebec, her first CD was released last September. “I put songs on my MySpace. That’s how the boss of my firm in Quebec discovered me,” Beatrice told us.

The young woman was only 18 years old but has done a lot of living, going by her tattoos and her nude photos that circulate on the net. “My first songs date from March 2007. I was leaving a difficult relationship and songs were the only way I found to express what I felt. A little by chance. Some have a blog, I write songs. I studied graphic arts. I always intend to pursue my career by pursuing my studies. I want to go to college. I have never seen music as a profession.”

Beatrice’s mother, a classical pianist, put her in front a piano at the age of 4, later sending her to the Conservatory from ages 9 to 14. “It was a chore. I never thought it would serve me one day. It was boring to me for years. Now I understand better,” said Beatrice.

But where does the voice of a wounded bird come from? And these tattoos, and these photos? “I do not smoke. I’ve learned to sing all by myself. By listening to Joni Mitchell, Al Green, all of Motown … I wanted to sing like these people. I got better live. I did not live on the street. I did not take drugs. Inrocks [the journal] has sexed things up a little. My adolescence was not that difficult. I come from a very privileged background and my parents put me in the best schools. The thing is, I lived very alone, very closed off. And I was with guys who were bastards. I’ve lived, but not that difficult an adolescence.

I have been with people who have hurt me, betrayed me, as I describe in my songs. The photos, I own up to them, but I do not want to talk about them. Tattoos, I like the concept, and the pain does not scare me. There is no particular meaning. I find them very pretty. My parents did not agree. At 16, when I started, they did not know; I hid them. I do not regret it because it made me happy but I do not recommend you start as young as I did.”

Julien Doré and Doris Day

You cannot miss the pirate heart on her left arm: “It’s from when I was 18. My first song was in English. It was ‘Her Pirate’s Heart’. Cœur de Pirate represents a project, a theme that may die one day. I’ll be able to find my name again.”

On the French version of her disc is a duet with Julien Doré (“Pour Un Infidèle”), while on stage, she takes up “Les Bords de Mer”. “he made himself known Quebec via the blog of Perez Hilton, who had posted the clip “Les Limites” that I found brilliant. So I ordered his record [imported from France]. I’m a fan. My label contacted him and he accepted. He’s cool. I thought he was going to hate my song. My dream? A duet with Francis Cabrel that I sang at the age of 4.

I’m not really based in rock culture. I grew up with folk. My parents listened to Ferrat, Aznavour, Brel, Ferré … My mother is a fan of Doris Day and my father was singing Dean Martin. I’m also a fan of Genesis.”

Source

Cœur de Pirate: Difficult to escape past escapades

Using the alias ”Bea”, the singer Coeur de Pirate had a few hundred pictures of herself online at her raw [naked] state until the spring of 2008.

QUÉBEC – When an artist rises to stardom, it becomes more and more difficult for them to get away from a bawdy past. Just like Madonna and the ex-beauty queen Vanessa Williams before her, the singer Béatrice Martin, aka Coeur de Pirate, is seeing her own popularity grow at the same rate as public curiosity towards her erotic pictures, which are still available on the web.

Using the alias ”Bea”, the singer Coeur de Pirate had a few hundred pictures of herself online at her raw [naked] state until the spring of 2008 on GodsGirls.com, a Los Angeles-based site featuring erotic models with an “alternative” look, with their bodies usually full of piercings and tattoos.

In the images, we can see the singer dressed in tight short shorts, or underwear with a tiara, and gradually progressing to fully nude. Other pictures show her in the shower.

What a surprise

Well known for many months in the blogosphere, the existence of Coeur de Pirate’s erotic pictures remained largely unknown to her fans; many of them were surprised to learn that she had posed as a nude model.

According to the comments in the forum on GodsGirls, the pictures of “Bea” were hosted from February 2007 to April 2008, which coincides with Béatrice Martin’s record detail with Grosse Boîte. The forum members started to question as to why the pictures were removed from their favorite website. The co-owner of the website, Annaliese Nielsen, stated in April of 2008, “I don’t know who Bea is but I heard that a girl that we used to know got a record deal, you know what I mean?”

The president and artistic director of Grosse Boîte, Éli Bissonnette, refused to comment on the matter. ”I don’t want to talk about this, and neither does she. I don’t think it’s relevant right now with everything that is happening with her career”, he said.

”The photos, I own up to that, but I do not want to talk about it”, said Béatrice Martin at the beginning of July to the Belgium newspaper ”Le Soir”.

Hard life

Even though all the controversial pictures were taken down from GodsGirls, the pictures remain easily available on the web because the bloggers and other internet users downloaded them before they were taken down, and are now making them available on the web via BitTorrents.

Other blogs published the pictures as well but removed them at the request of the artist. “The charming Béatrice asked us to remove them and, out of respect for her, we did just that. And no, we won’t send them to you,” said the owner of the Montreal Blog, IndecentXposure.

GodsGirls does not remember ”Bea’’

The co-owner of the website GodsGIrls.com, Annaliese Nielsen, says that she does not know Béatrice Martin, aka Coeur de Pirate, even if hundreds of erotic pictures of the Québec singer were published on the website in 2007 and 2008. Many of those pictures still floating around include the website’s logo on them,

“I never heard of Coeur de Pirate, but it’s a lovely name for a band, and I wish her the best of luck, whoever she is”, said the Californian ex-model and businesswoman in an interview given this week to the Soleil by e-mail. And “Bea? I don’t know anyone by the name of Bea.”