At this year’s American Music Awards, Kelly Rowland made headlines when she defended Chris Brown. This happened amid the brouhaha that unfolded over the weekend at the award show.

Over the weekend, Kelly Rowland was trending online following the incident at the American Music Awards (AMAs). During the award ceremony, Kelly Rowland defended Chris Brown after he won the award for R&B artist. The win triggered a mixed reaction from the audience, which consisted of both applause and boos from the crowd.

When Rowland noticed that a segment of the crowd was booing Rowland asked the crowd to pipe down.

“Excuse me — chill out,” said Rowland as she addressed the booing portion of the audience following her announcement of Brown’s win.

“I want to tell Chris thank you so much for making great R&B music. And I want to tell him thank you for being an incredible performer. I’ll take this award, bring it to you. I love you. Congratulations — and congratulations to all the nominees in this category,” said Rowland.

Rowland defending Brown comes ahead of the news break that Brown’s AMAs performance was cancelled for “unknown reasons.” On Friday, Brown took to Instagram to share that his AMA performance, which was supposed to be a tribute to the 40th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album was canceled. The “Nobody Has To Know” singer shared the behind-the-scenes footage of his rehearsals for the performance and what could have been. In the rehearsal clip, he can be seen dancing to various Jackson hits, including “Beat It,” “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and “Thriller.”

Reps for the ABC network have not made comments on why the tribute was canceled, social media was inundated with speculation about why the decision was made. Of course, many people assumed that Brown had been black balled due to his 2009 altercation with Rihanna, which made massive headlines, and in many ways, black-balled the singer.

Social media has since had a strong mixed reaction following Rowland’s stint at the AMAs.

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