American rapper Ice Spice has issued an apology following her controversial appearance at an Australian festival last week.
Spending the New Year’s Eve in Australia, Ice was billed to perform at multiple festivals including the Beyond the Valley festival in the state of Victoria, and three legs of the Wildlands Festival in capital cities Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.
The Brisbane edition of Wildlands came off on the New Year’s Eve, a day before Spice’s 25th birthday. The musician was billed to perform in the perform in the 10:30pm – 11pm slot as one of the festival’s headlining acts. Ice Spice was ultimately 30 minutes late to the stage, and didn’t appear before the crowd until 10:55pm though her spot was brought forward by 5 minutes.
Ice Spice was only able to perform two songs – including “Deli” and “Princess Diana” – before her microphone was cut off during “In Ha Mood” due to the festival’s tight scheduling ahead of the evening’s celebrations.
“At 11.01pm – they gave her an extra minute – they cut the mic and you heard the collective sigh from the crowd, They’d been waiting for a while and they get two songs?” said journalist and podcaster Brenton Larney.
“So that was a bit ridiculous and it was just really disrespectful how she walked off, she was laughing, they tried to give her flowers for her birthday, and she just shrugged them off,” he added, noting that it seemed as though the musician “didn’t want to be there”.
After their initial silence in the aftermath of the festival, organizers later addressed the situation via their Instagram comment section, explaining that Ice Spice’s microphone had to be cut off to ensure the rest of the festival – which included a countdown from U.K. duo Chase & Status – ran to time.
“We understand that Ice Spice’s delayed arrival caused some disappointment,” the festival stated. “Managing a stacked festival means that we have to be extremely firm with set times. We had a strict curfew of 12:30 and need to ensure that the final act went on stage on time, so everyone could enjoy the New Year’s Eve countdown.”
After being silent following the event, the musician returned to the stage on Saturday (Jan. 4) to perform at the Perth leg of the festival, where she briefly addressed the situation ahead during her set, as local radio station Youth Jam have reported.
“I’m sorry guys, surely y’all can forgive me,” she was quoted as saying. “It was my birthday and it takes a long time to look like a Barbie.” The statement was ostensibly shared as a brief lead in to her next song, the Nicki Minaj collaboration “Barbie World”.
