On Sunday night, the King of R&B was less like “Yeah! Yeah!” and more like “No! NO!” During the annual BET Awards, Usher, the aesthetically pleasing aesthete featured in horny ads and hornier Super Bowl performances, was scheduled to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of the network. But during the live telecast, parts of his acceptance speech — for what was intended to be the honor of his career — wound up muted, according to USA Today. Apparently, the prolific singer ended up sharing a complicated tribute to his father, but viewers wouldn’t know that because they couldn’t hear a damn thing. Come Monday, BET had issued an apology for failing on its promise to give this extraordinarily good-looking man his overdue flowers.
“Celebrating global icon Usher on our stage with a star-studded tribute and having him accept his award with a heartfelt speech was an honor,” a BET spokesperson said in a statement, per USA Today. “Due to an audio malfunction during the LIVE telecast, portions of his speech were inadvertently muted.”
“We extend our sincere apologies to Usher as we couldn’t be more grateful for his participation in Culture’s Biggest Night,” the spokesperson continued. “Fans can catch his full uninterrupted speech across BET platforms and tonight’s encore on BET.”
That’s nice, but everyone knows nothing compares to watching the real thing in real time — and certainly not an aggregated video on social media. Sort of like watching a delayed Coachella livestream or, far worse, attending weekend two (kidding, mostly). Anyway, in case you, like most of us, missed it the first time around, here’s what Usher had to say about the legacy of his late father, Usher Raymond III.
“I was trying to make sense of this name that a man gave me but didn’t stick around because he didn’t love me,” Usher said. “Or at least that was my perception of it, because I had to live long enough in order to understand that you have to have a forgiving heart in order to understand the true pitfalls and hardships of a Black man in America.
“You’ve got to be willing to forgive, y’all. He who knows no sin cast the first stone. You’ve got to be willing to forgive — got to be willing to be open,” he continued. “I’m telling you: You’re standing before a man who had to forgive a man who never showed up ever. And look what I made with it! Look what I was able to usher in. That’s what’s real. That’s what makes us human. That’s what makes us men and women. I thank you all, man.”
Like I said: Nobody puts Usher in a corner! Let the man speak his confessions!!!
