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Ariana DeBose Hilariously Claps Back at BAFTAs Rap Performance Fan Backlash: Her Response
Unbothered! Ariana DeBose hilariously clapped back at the harsh fan backlash she received for her 2023 BAFTAs rap performance.
“The internet is wild y’all,” the Hamilton actress, 32, captioned an Instagram carousel post on Saturday, February 24. “Appreciate all the love.”
Her post included videos of celebrities such as Lizzo and Adele sharing their support for Ariana by quoting one of her lines from her rap track, “Angela Bassett did the thing.”
The Academy Award winner’s playful Instagram post comes less than one week after she deactivated her Twitter account when social media users berated her performance at the February 19, London-based event.
my music hot take:
i GENUINELY liked Ariana DeBose's BAFTA 2023 performance 😌pic.twitter.com/tlUlgAqG4a
— ❖ (@yourdearlov3r) February 24, 2023
Ariana’s full presentation included a mix of songs including “We Are Family” and “Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves” in addition to her original rap that she performed at the top of the BAFTAs. Throughout her track, Ariana praised the female nominees, by rapping, “Viola Davis, my Woman King, Blanchett Cate you’re a genius, Jamie Lee [Curtis] you are all of us.”
While the audience appeared to enjoy the lighthearted show that the West Side Story actress put on, countless online trolls attacked her shortly after the performance aired.
“That was bloody awful,” one person tweeted in response to a Twitter clip of Ariana singing. “Cringe,” another chimed in, whereas a third wrote, “As a comedy performance, it would’ve been entertaining but, as a performance by someone claiming to be a singer, it was painful.”
Shortly after noticing the criticism, BAFTAs producer Nick Bullen released a statement to Variety addressing the comments toward Ariana.
“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,” he said. “I think a lot of people don’t like change, and there’s a view that the BAFTAs have to be this slightly stiff, traditional British, middle-England messaging. But American awards shows have much more razzmatazz, much more showbiz, and perhaps a broader range of people being involved. We felt we’re not about revolution, we’re about evolution.”
Nick added that he thought the backlash was “incredibly unfair, to be frank.”
“I absolutely loved it. Everybody I’ve spoken to who was in the room absolutely loved it,” he continued, defending Ariana by pointing out that she “only had a few weeks” to rehearse. “She’s a huge star, she was amazing. … That rap section in the middle, mentioning the women in the room, was because it’s been a great year for women in film, and we wanted to celebrate that. And here is a woman of color who is at the absolute top of her game. And she’s opening the BAFTAs with a song that said so much on so many levels.”
