Kelly Rowland Praises Chris Brown While Accepting An Award On His Behalf At The AMAs And Told The Crowd To “Chill Out” After They Booed Him
After Brown was crowned Favorite Male R&B Artist at Sunday night’s ceremony, Rowland gave a speech on his behalf and thanked him for “making great R&B music.”
As reported by BuzzFeed, the American Music Awards took place in LA on Sunday night, and the ceremony did not escape controversy.
Early in the broadcast, Kelly Rowland took the stage at the Microsoft Theater to present the award for Favorite Male R&B Artist.
In contention for the win were Brent Faiyaz, Giveon, Lucky Daye, The Weeknd, and Chris Brown — and Chris Brown was evetually crowned the winner.
When Rowland announced Brown’s name, the crowd booed audibly. She appeared surprised by the response, but proceeded with her presenting duties, explaining that he was not in attendance.
The reason for his absence remains unclear, though it’s possible that he’s embroiled in some kind of dispute with the AMAs producers after it was reported that they scrapped a Michael Jackson tribute that Brown had been scheduled to lead at the ceremony.
Over the weekend, Brown shared rehearsal footage of the musical number, which had been in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Jackson’s Thriller album. The Instagram post was captioned “U SERIOUS?,” seemingly in reference to the decision to pull the performance at the last minute.
In the comments section, he added: “WOULDVE been the ama performance but they cancelled me for reasons unknown.”
Given Brown’s absence, Rowland said that she would be accepting the award on his behalf, though the audience continued to express outrage.
“Excuse me…chill out,” she told the packed crowd with a raised finger, before going on to show her support for the singer.
“But I wanted to tell Chris, thank you so much for making great R&B music and I want to tell him thank you for being an incredible performer,” she continued. “I’ll take this award — bring it to you. I love you. Congratulations. And congratulations to all the nominees in this category.”
