Chris Brown won the Favorite Male R&B Artist Award at the 2022 AMAs, but the Under the Influence singer was visibly absent. Kelly Rowland accepted the award on his behalf, and that’s when the chaos started.
As Kelly began to accept Chris’s award, audible boos could be heard coming from the crowd. She started with, “Now Chris Brown is not here tonight, so I’m accepting the award on his behalf.”
Kelly then turned to the hecklers, held up a finger, and said, “Excuse me. Chill out.” The crowd quieted down, and Kelly continued speaking.
She thanked Chris for his contributions to R&B music, “But I wanna tell Chris Brown thank you so much for making great R&B music. And I wana tell him thank you for being an incredible performer.”
Kelly finished, saying that she was going to take the award and bring it to Chris personally. She told him she loved him before exiting the stage.
Chris’s absence from the award show follows the cancelation of his performance by the AMAs. He was scheduled to perform a Michael Jackson tribute before being told he was not allowed to for unknown reasons.
Chris Brown’s Michael Jackson tribute pulled for unknown reasons
Chris Brown seemed very upset that his performance was canceled mere days before the AMAs premiered. The 33-year-old took to his Instagram account to show a seven-minute video of footage of his rehearsal for the performance.
In the video, Chris was seen performing the choreographer with a room full of dancers. The performance started with Chris’s hit song Under the Influence before it transitioned into Michael Jackson’s Beat It.
Chris captioned the video, “U SERIOUS?” In the comments, he said, “WOULDVE been the ama performance but they canceled me for reasons unknown.
Other tributes that took place at the AMAs
Despite the Michael Jackson tribute being canceled, two other tributes still went on.
Singer Pink performed Hopelessly Devoted in a tribute to late singer Olivia Newton-John who died in August of breast cancer at 73. Over her career, Olivia won a total of 10 AMAs and cohosted the show in 1976 along with Glen Campbell and Aretha Franklin.
Singer Lionel Richie was awarded the AMA Icon Award. Smokey Robinson presented the Commodores singer with the award
Stevie Wonder and Charlie Puth took turns singing the American Idol host’s biggest hits, accompanying their singing with piano playing. At the end of the performance, Stevie and Charlie were joined by Melissa Etheridge, Ari Lennox, Jimmie Allen, Yola, Dustin Lynch, and Muni Long for the song We Are the World.