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The 2024 BET Awards were the talk of the internet this past weekend, but that was largely because they fumbled properly censoring Usher during his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award. The long-running entertainment network offered an apology to the Atlanta superstar.
"Due to an audio malfunction during the LIVE telecast, portions of his speech were inadvertently muted," they said to Billboard in a statement. "Celebrating global icon Usher on our stage with a star-studded tribute and having him accept his award with a heartfelt speech was an honor... We extend our sincere apologies to Usher as we couldn't be more grateful for his participation in Culture's Biggest Night."
The Confessions artist spoke for about 13 minutes during the Sunday evening award show (June 30). He admitted that he did not prepare a speech, but that he "likes to talk." As he recounted his journey in music and shouted out the many people who contributed to his journey, he began to use profanity. This led to about four minutes of silence, which social media users were not happy about. However, in true Black social media fashion, they also took the opportunity to make jokes.
"The censor person in the back during Usher speech," one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter), accompanying the caption with a gif of Bow Wow aggressively pressing a red button while on The Voice. Another user had a similar caption, only they chose to use a gif of Bow Wow playing the air piano during his 2021 Verzuz.
It wasn't a laughing matter for everyone, though. "Are they gonna upload Usher's unedited speech on BET+ or something, because this consistent muting is ridiculous?" one fan asked. "It's the silent acceptance speech for the viewers at home for me," another fan wrote. "Just go to commercial. Congratulations, Usher! Sh*t." Fortunately, Usher was not muted when he accepted his award for Best Male R&B/Pop Artist.
BET has righted the ship by posting the full, uncensored clip of his speech on their YouTube account as of Monday morning (July 1). He was also honored with a tribute performance that featured Childish Gambino, Keke Palmer, Victoria Monet, Teyana Taylor, Chlöe, Summer Walker, Marsha Ambrosius, Coco Jones, Tinashe, and Latto. Though Ursher seemed pleased with the set, social media users and critics believed that they could have made some better selections and highlighted the lack of male R&B acts in the performance.