Venerated singer and songwriter Babyface was shown flagrant disrespect while being interviewed by the Associated Press on the red carpet of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
While Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds was answering a question about the fusion of different musical genres in the modern era, he was suddenly cut off in mid-sentence by one of the two AP entertainment journalists.
The female reporter on Babyface’s left, Krysta Fauria, was looking past Babyface and did not even try to feign interest in what he had to say. While scanning the red carpet, Fauria suddenly blurted out Chappelle Roan’s name. Babyface stopped speaking but remained calm, and asked if the two of them wanted to talk to the other artist.
“You wanna talk to them?” he asked softly.
“Go talk to them,” Babyface concluded with an emotionless voice before handing off the mic and walking off.
The AP reporter on Babyface’s right, Leslie Ambriz, was mortified by her co-worker’s thirsty and imprudent actions and apologized. “So sorry,” she said meekly.
After industry folks and fans created a ruckus on social media about the indignity Babyface had to endure, the news service offered a mea culpa.
“We are deeply sorry for cutting our interview with Babyface short on our YouTube livestream of the Grammys red carpet. We have apologized to him through his representative and to our viewers on the live stream,” the AP wrote on X.
The offender, Fauria, also returned to the livestream a few hours later to convey her contrition for slighting Babyface.
“First, I wanted to say that I’m really sorry about interrupting Babyface earlier. Chappell Roan had come up, and there was a lot of commotion as there is on these carpets. I’m a big Babyface fan, as are we all, so I just wanted to say that,” she said.
Some fans were unsatisfied with the apology to Babyface
“Nice apology, but where are the letters of resignation??? Cause of [how] brazen they did this, pretty sure this is not their first mistake,” stated an X user.
Iconic singer Dionne Warwick quoted a clip of the incident with the comment, “13x Grammy Award-winning Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds? Am I seeing this correctly?.”
Khloe Kardashian also called out the young reporters.
“Babyface has had such a significant impact on the music industry in sooo many ways. It’s maddening to see a LEGEND not get the respect and attention they deserve,” Kardashian wrote on X.
Four-time Grammy-nominated artist Charlie Puth penned this scathing rebuke of the two women: “You can’t disrespect one of the most influential songwriters of our time like this. @babyface is ONE of ONE. He is multi-dimensional musically and has written timeless music that continues to inspire millions of people every day like myself.”
