‘West Side Story’ Actress Ariana DeBose Deactivates Twitter Account After Meme Worthy Performance At BAFTAs

Oh, man. The internet was alive and well this past weekend. On Sunday, Feb. 19, the 2023 BAFTA Film Awards went down in London. They’re basically the British version of the Oscars, so they’re a pretty big deal.

And ‘West Side Story‘ star Ariana DeBose opened the show with a lengthy musical number that featured a rap where she shouted out the female nominees in the crowd. It was pretty bizarre, and she was out of breath during most of it.

If you somehow missed it, check it out below… ANGELA BASSETT DID THE THING!

Ariana DeBose’s rap at BAFTA is simultaneously awful and amazing. Like, I can’t stop watching it.pic.twitter.com/lxjKrW5vTf

— Brian Rowe (@mrbrianrowe) February 20, 2023

The internet went after her for this. And we’re not talking about, “Oh, ha ha, that’s funny!” PEOPLE WERE LEGIT PISSED AT HER!

She received so much hate that she deactivated her Twitter account, which is honestly pretty sad. Imagine wanting to bully someone simply because you didn’t like their performance. Also, can we all stop pretending? If you listen to that clip 1,000 thousand times in a row like I have, it honestly starts to grow on you.

And people making fun of her because she’s out of breath? Really? We all know 99% of those people hating get out of breath checking the damn mail.

One of the producers of the show, Nick Bullen, is speaking out against the haters. He told Variety he believes the backlash is unfair.

I think it’s incredibly unfair, to be frank. I absolutely loved it. Everybody I’ve spoken to who was in the room absolutely loved it. She’s a huge star, she was amazing. The songs she was singing are very familiar songs, the room was clapping, and people were sort of dancing to the music. That rap section in the middle, mentioning the women in the room, was because it’s been a great year for women in film, and we wanted to celebrate that.

He went on to say she only had a couple weeks to prepare everything, which might explain why she was out of breath. She is a trained musical theater star, so it’s not like she hasn’t performed live perform. She most likely just didn’t have enough time to nail it down.

In any event, leave the poor woman alone… AND ENJOY THE SPECIAL MOMENT SHE GAVE US!

Unironically, “Angela Bassett did the thing” is probably the best distillation of her awards narrative that exists. She did the thing in WF, and has been doing the thing for decades without proper recognition. So thank you Ariana DeBose. pic.twitter.com/J69j4aNb5p

— Brandon Lewis (@blewis1103) February 21, 2023