Ariana DeBose has deactivated her Twitter account after online commentators attacked her opening variety at the 2023 BAFTA Awards. However, one of the event’s producers was once rapid to come to the West Side Story star’s defense, calling the backlash “incredibly unfair.”
DeBose carried out “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” and “We Are Family,” as properly as a unique rap the place she shouted out the awards show’s girl nominees.
Sisters are doing it for themselves! The extremely good @ArianaDeBose opens the 2023 #EEBAFTAs with an iconic performance! ✨
“Angela Bassett did the thing, Viola Davis my ‘Woman King,’ Blanchett Cate you’re a genius, Jamie Lee you are all of us,” sang DeBose. The digicam panned to the female as they have been name-dropped.
In a declaration to Variety after the award show, producer Nick Bullen said, “The songs she used to be singing are very acquainted songs, the room was once clapping, and humans have been kind of dancing to the music,” he instructed the publication. “That rap area in the middle, citing the girls in the room, used to be due to the fact it is been a superb yr for female in film, and we desired to have a good time that.”
Bullen says a lot of the criticism towards DeBose is due to the fact “a lot of human beings do not like change.” He confused that DeBose “worked with a superb musical director and choreographer.”
“There’s a view that the BAFTAs have to be this barely stiff, standard British, middle-England messaging,” Bullen explained, noting that, “American awards indicates have a lot greater razzmatazz, lots extra showbiz and possibly a broader vary of human beings being involved.”
“We felt we’re no longer about revolution, we’re about evolution. Let’s simply evolve, let’s just go ahead with some mild modifications that begin to lay out the stall of what this exhibit must be and the place we have to be with it,” Bullen said.
Aside from deactivating her Twitter account, DeBose has now not publicly addressed the performance.