Why Kelly Rowland feels Chris Brown – just like everybody – deserves grace and forgiveness

Kelly Rowland on Sunday made the news for her reaction to fans who booed at her fellow R&B singer Chris Brown after he won an award at this year’s American Music Awards. The 41-year-old, who had taken the stage to present the award for Favorite Male R&B Artist, told the crowd to “chill out” after boos were heard when she announced Brown as the winner. She also spoke highly of the Indigo singer.

On Monday, the Motivation singer again came to the defense of Brown after TMZ asked her about the incident, XXL reported. “I believe that grace is very real, and we all need a dose of it,” the former Destiny’s Child member said. “And before we point fingers at anybody, we should realize how grateful we are for every moment that we get. For even our own things that we have. I just think it’s important to remember to be human. We are humans.”

Rowland also concurred when she was asked if it was high time Brown is forgiven for some of his past behaviors – including infamously assaulting his ex-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. 

“We all need to be forgiven for anything that we could be doing, anything that we’re thinking,” Rowland said. “We all come up short in some sort of way. And grace is real. We are humans. And everybody deserves grace, period.”

As previously stated, Rowland came to the defense of Brown after a section of the crowd at the 2022 American Music Awards reacted negatively after he took home the Favorite Male R&B Artist award. 

“Chris Brown is not here tonight, so I’m accepting this award on his behalf,” Rowland said at Sunday’s event after she announced Brown as the winner. But when the crowd started booing the Heat singer, Rowland responded saying, “Excuse me, chill out.”

“But I wanna tell Chris thank you so much for making great R&B music. And I wanna 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,” she added.

Brown had been booked to perform a Michael Jackson tribute at the event. But organizers abruptly canceled his performance, with a spokesman telling Variety that it was a result of creative direction.

“Live shows change all the time, it’s the nature of this business; unfortunately, this element of the AMAs didn’t come together as we couldn’t align on the performance, to no fault of Chris Brown,” the statement said.