Kelly Rowland has some pretty controversial opinions about one of her music industry peers. Recently, it’s gotten her into trouble with fans who don’t exactly agree with her. It all has to do with an R&B star who gets himself into trouble, time and time again: Chris Brown.
According to TMZ, Kelly came to Chris’s defense at the 2022 American Music Awards when she was presenting the award for Favorite Male R&B Artist, which Chris won, to the disappointment of some audience members. Chris wasn’t there to pick up his award that night because of what’d happened earlier that year.
He was originally supposed to perform a Michael Jackson tribute at the AMAs, but he took to Instagram just days before the awards ceremony to announce it’d been canceled. He posted a video of him rehearsing Michel Jackson-inspired moves with other dancers. Below it, he wrote that he’d been canceled for reasons unknown.
TMZ speculated that it could’ve been because he was still considered a taboo artist, after what he did to Rihanna before the 2009 Grammys, among other things. The outlet pointed out that Michael had also become a controversial figure in light of more recent documentaries about things he allegedly did behind closed doors.
So, when Kelly announced Chris as the winner, she was met with both cheering and booing from the crowd. Kelly, who was accepting the award on his behalf, heard the boos and immediately put an end to them.
She told the audience to chill out, and then began praising Chris and his career. Kelly thanked him for making great music and for being an incredible performer. She said she would take the award and bring it to him, and finished by saying that she loved him.
Kelly Is on Chris Brown’s Side
Social media was filled with disbelief. People quickly hopped on Twitter to comment on what Kelly had just said. One user asked what decent thing Chris Brown had done in recent years that warranted any type of praise.
Another asked why Chris was still winning awards and why Kelly was on stage thanking him. Somebody else simply wrote: “Kelly Rowland defending Chris Brown with her whole chest. Yikes”
But her AMA’s speech wasn’t the last time that Kelly championed Chris. A couple days later, TMZ caught Kelly in West Hollywood. Their reporter asked her more questions about how she felt about the questionable R&B singer.
While she was careful with her words, the outlet claimed that she was very much on Chris’s side. She said that grace was very real and that everyone needed a dose of it.
Kelly stressed that before pointing fingers at anybody, people should realize how grateful they are for every moment. She added that it was important to remember that all of us are human.
When TMZ’s reporter asked if Chris should be forgiven, Kelly’s answer was pretty diplomatic, but it was clear that her answer was yes. She shared that everyone needed to be forgiven for anything they could be doing. She said that all of us come up short in some sort of way and that everybody deserved grace.
Internet Users Did Not Side with Kelly
The disagreement with Kelly could be heard strongly in the world of online threads and chat forums. One Reddit user asked what loyalty she owed him, and why she was choosing that battle to fight.
Someone said that they’d worked on songs together. Every time someone hopped on a track with Chris, they always did interviews praising him. They added that some come off as genuinely brainwashed, while it seemed like for others it was a contractual obligation.
RELATED: Kelly Rowland Crossed the Line
A third user wrote that they were all for rehabilitation, but Chris had continued harming others for over a decade. The time for grace was long past and it was time to call out people like him.
Another person pointed out that Kelly had claimed she was a DV survivor. It made her position feel a bit worse because she would’ve known how Chris’s victims felt.
A report by Essence revealed that Kelly released a song called Dirty Laundry, in which she sang about an ex-boyfriend who’d allegedly hurt her physically. In the song, she claimed that her past lover had put his hands on her. He even turned her against Beyonce at one point.
Chris Has an Extensive History of Violent Behavior
Unfortunately, Kelly is just one of many celebrities who have come to Chris’ defense. A lot of the time they are male artists. Justin Bieber even called him legendary in a 2019 Instagram post.
According to The Brag, many of Chris’s supporters believe that he only made one mistake a long time ago and that he deserves to be forgiven for it. However, the outlet also published a list of all the other times that Chris has been in legal trouble because of the ways he treated women.
He reportedly pushed a woman onto the ground and damaged her knee at a nightclub in 2013. He was accused of hitting a woman in the face and taking her cell phone from her while in a club in Las Vegas in 2016.
In 2017, his ex-girlfriend, Karrueceh Tran, got a five-year restraining order against him. In court, she shared the threatening messages that she’d gotten from him, per USA Today. More recently, in 2022, Page Six reported that he was accused of having his way with a woman on a yacht in Miami, and found himself in the middle of a $20 million lawsuit.
His latest lawsuit wasn’t filed by women. An article by People Magazine revealed that he and his entourage are being sued for $50 million because of the physical harm they allegedly caused 4 of his concertgoers in July 2024.
Chris’ Career Has Remained Primarily Unaffected
CAknowledge claims that Chris has a net worth of $60 million. Despite the controversy connected to his name, the R&B singer is still accepted in the music industry. He continues to make albums and win accolades.
Chris has been nominated for 14 Grammys since 2009, and he won one in 2012. He’s also frequently been nominated for awards by other big establishments like the Billboard Music Awards, the BET Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards.
In an article written by BuzzFeed staff member, Natasha Jokic, she said that when people who harmed others were given more power, it set a precedent for others like them. She interviewed a certified counselor named Shanita Brown.
They talked about men who were known to be allegedly dangerous to women but were still being given more fame and money. Shanita shared that it reinforced the idea that those kinds of men were not held accountable, that nobody would believe survivors, and they shouldn’t speak up.
Media Outlets Are Questioning Kelly’s Motives
Lainey Gossip released a report about how Kelly stood up for Chris and questioned what her motives were. The writer pointed out that in many cases where famous black men had been accused of hurting others, black women were often there to defend them. She wrote that there seemed to be a community maternal and protective instinct that kicked in.
The writer asked why black women were tasked with protecting black men when they really hadn’t shown up for them in the same way. She talked about how Twitter users were reminding Kelly, who the writer said is considered to be dark-skinned, that Chris has often been accused of being colorist.
Madame Noire reported that a woman made an allegation that she was too dark to be allowed into his party. Other women also claimed they had similar experiences.
Lainey Gossip also commented on how women seem to get more of a backlash for supporting Chris than men do. When Normani appeared with him in one of his 2022 music videos, she was slammed by fans online, per Page Six.
An article by Blavity revealed that Ciara received a similar reaction when she released a song with him in 2023. The same was true for Chloe Bailey when he featured on one of her singles. However, when male artists like Usher praised Chris, it didn’t seem to cause the same kind of uproar.
