Billionaire pop star Emin Agalarov, 39, spoke out after cancelling a sell-out tour of America and Canada, fearing he would become entangled in a probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election. The 39-year-old son of Azerbaijani-Russian property magnate Aras, who has a second career in real- estate, famously organised Donald Trump’s trip to Moscow in 2013. The then Apprentice star and Miss Universe beauty contest head was accused of seeing prostitutes.
Emin also brokered a meeting in 2016, in which it is alleged the Trump team was offered damaging information to sabotage presidential rival Hillary Clinton’s electoral campaign.
Present were three people associated with Trump’s campaign: son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and consultant Paul Manafort. They met Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Georgian-US businessman Ike Kaveladze at Trump Tower in New York.
The meeting is being scrutinised in the US Mueller probe into claims of ballot-rigging by the Russians.
The singer was due to start the sell-out tour when he was told he risked a subpoena, so cancelled. He says he will lose £380,000 for ticket refunds and lost flights.
Emin, who has had a Radio 2 “album of the week” with Wonder, said from Azerbaijan last night: “It’s very disappointing, especially for my fans.
“We’d set aside an extra two weeks to speak to the investigators. I was more than happy to volunteer this time to clarify certain issues.
Then my lawyers told me they’d had a conversations and there was a hostile mood and plans to subpoena me for mandatory testimony. Even that didn’t bother me.
“But when I asked if they could guarantee I could leave once the tour was over, they said probably not. The Mueller investigation has already been going on for 18 months – I wasn’t going to jeopardise time with my family and other tours.”
Emin has tried to laugh off any conspiracy claims. His recent hit Got Me Good shows a Trump look-a-like walking hotel corridors with Emin and Miss Universe beauties as the singer hands him a briefcase.
He added: “Because I was involved – I did meet Trump in Moscow and I did set up that pointless meeting at Trump Tower – I am one of the few people who knows the truth of what went on. And so I know how the most irrelevant things have been blown out of all proportion by politics.”
The 2013 Miss Universe episode in Moscow led to “dirty dossier” claims that Trump was involved in sex acts with prostitutes.
But Emin said Trump was businesslike throughout the contest, adding: “To claim that I offered to get him girls is nonsense.”
More serious are claims surrounding the 2016 New York meeting.
But Emin said: “My father had asked me to set up a meeting but… I asked my music manager Rob Goldstone to do it.
“At one point that day I called Rob and he told me it had been the biggest waste of time.
“We’d forgotten all about it until it erupted again years later.”
He said the hostility towards Russia was being fuelled by anti-Trump politicians and the media.
“There’s an anti-Russia world fever and a lot of criticism against Putin,” he said.
“But Trump is a businessman and in the business world we all understand that it’s always better to make a deal than break a deal.
“He would want a more favourable relationship between the US and Russia and it would benefit both economies.
“If the world would just relax, things would get back to their normal pace.”