Ariana DeBose has given her first public remark on probably the most humiliating opening performance in the 76-year history of the rich and diverse BAFTA awards.
Sunday evening's opening performance by the outstanding actress and singer at the 76th EE British Academy Film Awards astonished the audience.
The 32-year-old, who won the award for Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story at last year's gala, hit the stage with an inspirational rap about this year's female candidates.
Yet the song's lyrics, music, and dance, which DeBose gamely performed in front of a mostly confused audience at London's Royal Festival Hall, went down like a lead balloon and prompted a flood of scathing comments on social media.
The apparent uproar drove the well-intentioned DeBose to suspend her Twitter account, but she was back online after discovering an Instagram account dedicated to memes about her infamous performance.
Utilizing one of the performance's memorable lyrics, one meme depicts former US President George W. Bush being informed by former Chief Of Staff Andy Card about the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
The words "Sir, Angela Bassett did the thing" are placed on the photograph, which depicts one of the iconic moments of the 2001 disaster.
Tuesday, in response to the humorous message, DeBose wrote: "Honestly, I love this."
The performance began with a song, during which she was joined by dancers who tore off her skirt in impressive sequences, and then she proceeded to mention the names of celebrities in the audience.
Racing to Twitter, fans brandished the performance 'painful' and 'awkward' with one asking: 'Why did this happen?'. Later in the concert, however, Little Simz wowed the audience with her "electrifying" performance alongside Joan Armatrading.
Following Ariana's perfomance one viewer wrote: 'P***ing myself laughing at Ariana DeBose's BAFTA song, why did this happen?'. With another commenting, "Absolutely awful she wouldn't get a ingle turn on [talent show] The Voice." Several people wrote, "That was dreadful" and "God-awful."
The producer of Sunday night's 2023 BAFTA Awards responded to Twitter criticism of singer/actress Ariana DeBose's opening musical medley, which combined a classic 1980s hit with an original rap.
The West Side Story star was criticized for the bit, which combined a classic 1980s hit with an original rap.
"We wanted to open the show with some energy, some fun, and also lay out straight away that this was hopefully going to feel like a different night, but with a familiarity as well, and what Ariana did was exactly that," producer Nick Bullen told Variety the morning after the telecast.
He stated that DeBose and her crew put together the entire bit in close coordination with the show's musical director and choreographer, and that she did not deserve the harsh criticism.
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