Sunday night, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences got themselves a whole lot of Chris Brown — the temperamental R&B star was invited to perform not once, but twice and won a Grammy for Best R&B Album (his first victory after 11 nominations). Chris Brown then promptly returned to being Chris Brown, the loudmouth rage-a-holic who was convicted of beating his then-girlfriend Rihanna on Grammy Eve ’09. Wonder if the Academy is having buyers’ remorse yet.
As we’ve mentioned, the egregiousness of Brown’s Grammy redemption party was underlined by the sudden passing and subsequent honoring of the late Whitney Houston, whose history of domestic abuse no doubt assured Brown’s actions would go doubly noticed that night.
And noticed it obviously was. Yesterday, as E! observed, Miranda Lambert — among others like St. Vincent, Le Tigre, Michelle Branch and Matt Nathanson — hit Twitter to shame the singer, whose behavior in 2009 has not been forgotten (except by his teenaged fans, who inexplicably still exist, and who have made some pretty disturbing jokes about letting him beat them, too), by saying, “Not cool that we act like [Brown beating Rihanna in 2009] didn’t happen. He needs to listen to Gunpowder and Lead and be put back in his place. Not at the Grammys.” (Lambert was referring to her song “Gunpowder and Lead,” in which the protagonist is a battered woman who “loads [her] shotgun, waits by the door and lights a cigarette” in preparation for her abusive man to get home.)
Brown has not responded to Lambert’s (and the rest of the industry’s) missives, but he continues to show no remorse. Quite the opposite, actually: He seems to think all press is good press, but Mashable caught him deleting a tweet yesterday that read, “HATE ALL U WANT BECUZ I GOT A GRAMMY Now! That’s the ultimate FUCK OFF!” Adorable, right? As far as we know, there’s no rule that says the Recording Academy can’t revoke that Grammy.
There are uncomfortably valid speculations, also, that the Academy intended to use Brown’s appearance as a publicity stunt to draw haters and “Team Breezy” (ugh), which would be a particularly ugly low for NARAS. So far the only folks jumping to Brown’s defense are Wiz Khalifa (who was seen with Amber Rose giving the singer a standing ovation when he performed Sunday) and View host Sherri Shepherd. Team Anti-Breezy.
