Names and faces

• After a series of tweets from Rihanna criticizing CBS for dropping her song from last week's premiere of Thursday Night Football, the network has decided to remove the song from its telecasts for the remainder of this season. CBS issued a statement Tuesday saying it was "moving in a different direction" with the opening montage for its Thursday night games. Last week, after the suspension of the Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice, CBS dropped the celebratory opening for its new package of NFL games in favor of pregame coverage of the breaking news, along with commentary about domestic violence. Included in the original opening was music from "Run This Town," a rendition of a song by Jay Z, featuring Kanye West and Rihanna. Two spokesmen confirmed that CBS had decided, in light of Rihanna's unhappiness over the network's decision last week, to replace the song with "newly created Thursday Night Football theme music." CBS' top sports executive Sean McManus said last week that Rihanna's previous connection to incidents involving domestic violence played some hand in the decision to drop the song last week, though it was not the main reason for the change.

Robin Thicke's attorney says the estate of Marvin Gaye exploited Thicke's "moment of personal vulnerability" in an attempt to prove that the hit "Blurred Lines" was a ripoff of a Gaye hit. The estate sued Pharrell Williams and Thicke over the song last year. In a deposition, obtained Tuesday, Thicke says Williams did much of the writing on the Grammy-nominated song and says, "I was just lucky enough to be there when he wrote it." Thicke also says he was high on a mix of prescription drugs and alcohol during the writing of the song and in interviews after its release. Attorney Howard King said lawyers for the Gaye estate are just trying to prop up their lawsuit that says the 2013 international hit was stolen by writers, including Thicke and Williams, and that it ripped off "Got to Give It Up." "Robin's moment of personal vulnerability is being exploited in the hope of diverting attention from the obvious weakness of their legal claim," King said in an email Monday night from Thicke's publicist. The Gaye family said through an email from their attorney: "We did not inject Mr. Thicke's issues into this case. Mr. Thicke and his counsel did so in the attempt to avoid his prior admissions regarding 'Got to Give it Up.'"

A Section on 09/18/2014

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