Janelle Monae's "Today" show speech on police brutality was cut off during the live telecast last week and, while many reports accused NBC of purposely interrupting the singer's remarks, the network insists the abrupt commercial break was not intentional.
The singer had just finished performing her hit song "Tightrope" on Friday when she launched into a statement on police brutality. That's when the network
appeared to cut to commercial, according to Entertainment Weekly.
"Yes Lord! God bless America,"
Monae said on-the-air after her song, Billboard reported. "God bless all the lost lives to police brutality. We want white America to know that we stand tall today. We want black America to know we stand tall today. We will not be silenced," she said before the "Today" cameras cut back to the anchors.
A "Today" show source told Billboard that the politics of Monae's statement had nothing to do with cutting off her speech.
"The show went to a hard commercial break at the end of 'Tightrope,' which ran a couple of minutes over time," the source told Billboard. "The performance was not intentionally cut off — the show is programmed for that hard commercial break at the same time every day."
But, sure enough, conspiracy theories started swirling after it was inaccurately reported by many websites, initially including Billboard and
Monae's hometown newspaper the Kansas City Star, that the singer actually performed "Hell You Talmbou," a song that references police brutality, before the speech instead of "Tightrope."
The Kansas City Star's Melissa Graham added that "Today" featured Monae's "Tightrope" and "Yoga" on its website and not "Hell You Talmou." Turns out, there was a good reason for that.
"Janelle Monae and Wondaland performed three songs on the 'Today' show Friday: 'Yoga,' 'Tightrope,' and 'Classic Man,'" a network source told EW. "The show went to a hard commercial break at the end of the song 'Tightrope,' which ran a couple of minutes over time."
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