Photo Credit: Chris Brown/Instagram
Chris Brown had been lighting Instagram up with his rehearsals for the American Music Awards with him doing a tribute for Michael Jackson. His performances were to include MJ’s hits Beat It, Wanna Be Starting Something and Thriller, all in line with the 40th anniversary of MJ’s best selling album, Thriller. Then came a random post from Brown captioned with, “U SERIOUS?” followed up with “WOULDVE been the ama performance but they cancelled me for reasons unknown.”
Now the reason for his performance being cut is up for debate. Just take a look at the framing The Daily Mail did of this story, writing “The 33-year-old singer, who is infamous for beating up Rihanna when they were dating, alleged that he was given no reason for the decision.” Now that was uncalled for. And for the record, he’s famous for a lot more than that event over a decade ago. Akon spoke out recently saying that he believes Brown’s “hood ties” is what kept him from having a Michael Jackson type of legacy.
Chris Brown was suppose to do Michael Jackson tribute for the 40th anniversary of Thriller (the album) at the #AMAs this Sunday.
However, the AMA’s canceled it without telling him their reason … here is footage of him rehearsing
— RNB RADAR (@RNB_RADAR) November 19, 2022
On Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, Akon told the NFL Hall of Famer “In this day and age, the only person, in my opinion, that could’ve achieved just as great of a legacy as [Michael Jackson], to me, would’ve been Chris Brown. I just believe that Chris Brown wasn’t surrounded by the circle of creative people that Mike was surrounded by. Because Chris got the talent, he just needed the direction.” He added, “Imagine if Chris had Mike’s team? Just imagine that. It would be something different. But Chris, he got Bloods around him, he got little gangbangers around him. He don’t have the guidance. He’s smart, but he’s smart according to what this generation’s ‘smart’ attracts.”
The fact the Chris Brown was bringing his daughter to the rehearsals and she was probably going to the AMAs to watch her dad perform and now she won’t be able, its really breaking my heart 💔
“my daddy works so hard” 😥 pic.twitter.com/1BOu3bKIY7
— ʜᴇʟᴏ (@hwloiza) November 19, 2022
And Michael Jackson’s legacy is still debated to this day, although it’s hard to imagine cancel culture coming after him still. There was the 2019 Leaving Neverland documentary that MJ’s family referred to as a “public lynching” saying he had been found innocent. The family responded to the film saying, “We are furious that the media, who without a shred of proof or single piece of physical evidence, chose to believe the word of two admitted liars over the word of hundreds of families and friends around the world who spent time with Michael, many at Neverland, and experienced his kindness and global generosity.”
So the reasons behind Chris Brown’s performance cancellation vary and we’re just sad to see we don’t get to him give a tribute to the man many feel he’s the closest to his legacy.
