Rappers Diddy and Fabolous have shared reaction to Chris Brown's emotional Michael Jackson tribute at last night's BET Awards.
Speaking from an afterparty, Diddy said the singer stole the show.
At the afterparty, hosted by the tag team of Diddy and "Hustle & Flow" actress Taraji P. Henson, everyone from a show producer to the cast of the soon-to-be-revived BET series "The Game," as well as some of the night's winners and presenters, had something to say about Brown's emotional performance of "Man in the Mirror," during which the singer fell to his knees crying, genuinely unable, it seemed, to sing the song. "You know who stole my heart tonight?" Henson asked. "Chris Brown!" answered Diddy, host Queen Latifah, BET personality Tigger and a group of others in near-unison.
Writing via Twitter, Fabolous said Brown gave a historic performance.
"Chris Brown jus single handledly bodied every MJ tribute to date. His dance swagger is almost exact to Michael's.. Almost..," he wrote late Sunday (June 27) night.
Brown's meltdown took place as "Man in the Mirror" began to play.
And while Todd Bridges showed up to give a shout-out to Gary Coleman ("I was even hearing [that phrase] in prison!") it was Brown who was tasked with the expected yet still-surprising Michael Jackson tribute marking the first anniversary of the King of Pop's death. Brown even started out in silhouette, making us squint at first to see who was donning the trademark fedora. Brown did justice to Jackson's dance moves (as much as anyone could, that is) and his sweet timbre, but whether it was out of feeling for Jackson or introspection directed at his own past foibles, the tarnished 21-year-old choked up and never recovered when "Man in the Mirror" got going.
Recently, BET Vice President of Music Programming Stephen Hill spoke with SOHH and denied rumors that Brown was banned from last year's show.
"The Chris Brown and Jay-Z rumors from last year's awards show were so inaccurate that sometimes you just don't respond to it because it's just ludicrous. I can tell you for a fact that Jay-Z had nothing to do with keeping Chris Brown from the show. Only thing that Jay-Z said about Chris Brown was when we joked about the rumor of him keeping Chris from the show."
Check out Chris Brown's performance down below:
