Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve has accused the media of tarnishing sales of his debut album.
The French Canadian, who was left without a seat for the 2007 formula one season, recently turned his attention to releasing ‘Private Paradise’ — a self-confessed semi-professional attempt to step up his hobby as a singer and songwriter.
But Villeneuve, who turned 36 this week, lashed out at Montreal tabloid Le Journal for claiming that a mere 233 copies of the album have been sold so far.
Instead, the former F1 driver thinks a figure of between 1,200 and 1,500 is more accurate, and branded the journalists responsible for the fit-up as “idiots”.
He said bad publicity due to the media not taking his project seriously has had a “huge negative effect” on sales.
Referring to the figures, Villeneuve admits: “They’re not great (but) it’s actually not that bad.
“We were at 49 (in the charts), which is acceptable in the first week,” he told Hour.ca.
“Position 20 on the chart was about 50 CDs more. So it was taken out of context and people thought, ‘Oh wow, that’s really a piece of sh-t.'”
