Kori Barnes 
This past weekend at the American Music Awards where fans were rooting for all of their favorite artists, singer/actress Kelly Rowland came to the defense of fellow R&B artist Chris Brown.
As Rowland accepted the award on the behalf of Brown as the winner of the category “Favorite Male R&B Artist,” she immediately took to his defense to attempt to silence the audience as they booed him. She told the audience to settle down as she expressed the need from fans to critics to give Brown his flowers that he deserves and thanked him for his contribution to music.
Brown took to his Instagram platform this past weekend to release the dance practice of what fans would’ve seen him perform at the AMA’s with the caption “U SERIOUS?”. Many were confused as to why Brown’s Michael Jackson tribute performance was canceled, but it seems that this artist was just as unsure as to the “why”. Brown took to his Instagram story to post a snapshot of an article written on the total viewer average of the AMA’s declined since last year. In the next Instagram story post, he released a snapshot of how many views he received on the dance practice video of the choreography that millions would’ve seen on the award show. His post received over 11.7 million viewers. It’s safe to say that Brown believes his attendance and performance would’ve achieved massive ratings. R&B singer, Ciara, would’ve joined him on the stage for this special tribute as well.
The reason for Brown’s performance getting canceled for the AMA’s seems to be not as deep as fans speculated. According to madamenoire.com, “Dick Clark Productions, the company behind the AMAs, issued a statement to Entertainment Tonight, detailing why they chose to scrub the R&B singer’s tribute act. According to producers, their decision to cancel the performance was a creative direction choice and had nothing to do with Brown directly. “Live shows change all the time, it’s the nature of this business; unfortunately, this element of the AMAs didn’t come together as we couldn’t align on the performance, to no fault of Chris Brown,” the statement read. Although the speculation of the reason as to why the performance was canceled has been answered, Rowland has experienced backlash in regards to her support for Brown.
After the highly publicized beating of Rihanna in 2009, Brown has had to fight for every chance to prove himself differently from what occurred that night which he’s publicly apologized for. Although Rihanna has publicly forgiven him for the incident that ultimately caused the end of their relationship, fans and critics have not forgotten whenever the topic of Brown is mentioned. When Rowland accepted Brown’s award she said, “I want 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.” Since Rowland’s remarks on Brown, she’s expressed to TMZ that everyone makes mistakes and deserves grace. That we’re all humans and things can happen.
Have you forgiven Chris Brown? Make sure to leave your reaction below.
By Kori Barnes, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Insta: @korixnicoel
True Star Media’s content is made possible thanks to donors like you. To support the voice and perspective of youth, donate at elevate.truestarfoundation.org.
