Maybe we should all think about what we did to Ariana DeBose.
The Broadway star and actor who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Anita in 2022’s “West Side Story” appears to have deactivated his Twitter account Monday, after a Sunday night BAFTA show that was, uh, well, pretty cheesy.
HuffPost reached out to DeBose for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Twitter had a little fun with DeBose on Sunday night after she rapped about all the female BAFTA nominees during the awards’ opening number.
It didn’t help that as he rapped about each candidate, the camera panned to that specific actor and most seemed to give off a certain scolding when their name was mentioned.
DeBose, who obviously rapped like any musical theater pro, also drew a lot of attention for a cryptic line in which he said, “Angela Bassett did the thing.”
In fact, the joke was talked about so much that “Angela Bassett” was trending on Twitter on Monday, with mixed reactions.
Some made fun of the lyrics…
…While others seemed to enjoy DeBose’s over-the-top performance.
It’s unclear if that’s why DeBose deactivated his account, and most of the tweets about his rapping are more in the spirit of lighthearted teasing than pure vitriol. But there was a lot of discussion online about his rap, BAFTA producer Nick Bullen told Variety. On Monday, that criticism was “incredibly unfair.”
Bullen told the media that DeBose “put the whole piece together” in a short period of time with his team and worked closely with a musical director and choreographer. Bullen said the rap was meant to celebrate “a big year for women in film,” starring “a black woman who is at the absolute top of her game.”
When asked by Variety if the teasing could be due to a culture clash or because people only saw the rap side of his performance, Bullen replied that rap has to resonate with “young people” and “different groups” and not with “British traditionalists”. the audience at the awards ceremony”.
“I think a lot of people don’t like the change and there’s a perception that the BAFTAs have to be so rigid, traditional British, Middle England messages,” Bullen told Variety. “But American award shows have a lot more razzmatazz, a lot more showbiz and maybe a wider range of people involved. I felt that it is not about revolution, but about evolution”.
But all kidding aside, we can’t really blame DeBose for wanting to do this to Angela Bassett on her Twitter account:
