Kelly Rowland believes Chris Brown deserves “grace and forgiveness” for his past mistakes after he was booed at the American Music Awards on Sunday.
The Destiny’s Child singer accepted the Favorite Male R&B Artist AMAs trophy on Brown’s behalf and told the crowd to “chill out” after several audience members booed and shouted about his win.
Brown remains a controversial figure in the music industry 13 years after he assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna before the 2009 Grammy Awards.
Rowland was approached by TMZ on Monday and asked for her response to Brown being booed.
“I believe that grace is very real and we all need a dose of it,” she said. “Before we point fingers at anybody we should realise 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.”
The 41-year-old was then asked if he needed to be forgiven, and she replied, “We all need to be forgiven, for anything we could be doing, anything that we’re thinking, we all come up short in some sort of way. And grace is real, and we are humans, and everybody deserves grace, period.”
When she accepted the award on Brown’s behalf, Rowland said, “I want to tell Chris, thank you so much for making great music, and I want to tell him thank you for being an incredible performer. I’ll take this award and bring it to you, I love you! Congratulations, and congratulations to all the nominees in this category.”
Brown was originally to perform a dance tribute to Michael Jackson at the ceremony, but it was scrapped.
On Monday, Ciara shared footage of her rehearsing the Thriller dance routine with Brown, revealing that she would have appeared in the tribute too.