Just hours after Kim Kardashian gushed about Bahrain, riot police fired tear gas to disperse more than 50 protesters denouncing her presence in the Gulf kingdom.
Witnesses said police also dispersed some demonstrators with stun grenades. There were no reports of casualties.
The clashes took place just before Kardashian opened the Bahrain branch of the Millions of Milkshakes shop at The Walk Bahrain, an upmarket mall in the capital Manama.
The demonstrators were cleared before Kardashian appeared late on Saturday. Thousands of fans, who had paid up to 500 Bahraini dinars (Dh4,870) a ticket, broke into hysterical screams as the 32-year-old celebrity arrived.
Earlier, Kardashian posted glowing remarks about Bahrain on Twitter, calling it "the prettiest place on Earth". It was re-tweeted by Bahrain's foreign minister.
Kardashian stirred controversy even before she arrived in Bahrain from Kuwait, where she opened a branch of the milkshake store last week. Several MPs in Bahrain presented a motion to parliament calling her "an actress with an extremely bad reputation", according to Bahrain's Englishlanguage paper Gulf Daily News.
The assembly did not vote on the motion, the newspaper reported.
Kardashian fans took to Twitter to express their displeasure. One post said that the "MPs should focus their time on solving key political, economic and social issues". - Reuters, AP
