Puck News details drama at ABC/Disney over a planned Chris Brown performance @ the AMAs
New @pucknews: When the head of Disney’s TV division gets sucked into an awards show performer fight. https://t.co/carX8UDMYa
- Matthew Belloni (@MattBelloni) November 21, 2022
• In his newsletter this evening, Matt Belloni shared a piece when went down at Disney/ABC this week and how that led to the cancellation of a Chris Brown performance at the American Music Awards.
• The performance was a medley of Michael Jackson hits to celebrate Thriller's 40th anniversary. Belloni notes that Brown would have been the main element of the performance but that Ciara and other unnamed artists would be participating. He also states that "Beat It" was one of the songs they planned to use in the medley.
• Last night (November 19) Brown confirmed on Instagram that the performance was in fact an MJ tribute, and had indeed been cancelled, though he states that the network cancelled him for "reasons unknown."
• Due to this cancellation, Brown did not show up to the ceremony and wasn't there to accept his award for Favorite Male R&B Artist, a win which caused the audience to boo and they were reprimanded by Kelly Rowland. Rowland accepted the award on Brown's behalf saying, "thank you so much for making great R&B music and I want to tell him thank you for being an incredible performer. I’ll take this award - bring it to you. I love you. Congratulations."
• This year's AMAs were executive produced for Dick Clark Productions by Jesse Collins and Stephen Hill, and both were working closely with Brown's team to put together the performance. This would have been Brown's first televised award show performance for Brown since the BET Awards in 2017, and it would be the first since the #MeToo movement hit Hollywood.
• Belloni mentions that Collins and especially Hill, "a former programing chief at BET who has a good relationship with Brown," both "felt strongly about giving Brown an opportunity to return to TV."
• Belloni called the network and asked for a statement about it but said ABC higher-ups were unaware that, "a convicted domestic abuser" was going to be "feting an alleged child molester on a Disney network" this Sunday. ABC Entertainment president, Craig Erwich and ABC head of alternative and specials, Rob Mills, went back to Collins and Hill to scrap the performance.
• Collins and Hill were allegedly furious and during a phone call with Mills, "they walked through the likely blowback of shutting down an opinionated performer with such a big fan following." Erwich, Mills, the Disney/ABC PR Team and the head of ABC talent Felicia Joseph proceeded to debate the issue. It was so serious that it even reached the desk of the highest Disney TV exec, Dana Walden.
• Belloni says, "Disney wasn't opposed to Brown performing, it was just the pairing of this artist with this material that would be potentially radioactive and thus a nonstarter."
• Disney asked Collins and Hill to come back with new options for Brown to perform, but Brown wasn't interesting in performing anything but the MJ medley. Brown bailed on the show and other participants were worked into the show elsewhere (ex: Ciara being a presenter at the show tonight).
• The president of Dick Clark Productions apologized to Disney for "any miscommunications" and in a statement to Belloni a DCP representative said, "live shows change all the time, it's the nature of this business. Unfortunately, this element of the AMAs didn't come together as we couldn't align on the performance, to no fault of Chris Brown." ABC declined to comment on the situation.
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