Location: Aretha Franklin’s funeral, Detroit, Michigan.
A powerful ceremony, which was broadcast live all over the world. To pay a final tribute to the queen of soul; the first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; the winner of 18 Grammys and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, who died earlier this month at the age of 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
And then this happens. Ariana Grande, one of the many performers that evening, and one of Aretha’s favourite young singers, gets groped during a casual chat with the Master of Ceremonies, a bishop, on stage, on live TV.
Just before that awful moment, this was Ariana Grande singing Franklin’s song, “You Make me Feel Like a Natural Woman” at the funeral ceremony.
Bishop Charles H Ellis III, the emcee of the event, awkwardly greeted Grande on stage after her performance and touched her well above her waist in what was seemingly a hug, pressing his fingers against one side of her chest, repeatedly, as can be seen in this video.
The video zooms in on the Emcee’s hand, and Grande’s body language which seems clearly uncomfortable, yet unable to voice protest in the moment.
Amazingly, she had been criticised on social media for wearing a skirt that was “too short” for a church.
But the length of her skirt is not the problem here, as pointed out by a Twitter user.
The bishop has now apologised to Grande in an AP interview for how he touched her on stage, denying that he did it intentionally. "It would never be my intention to touch anyone's breast," and that perhaps he "crossed a border."
He has also added that he did not want to be a “distraction” on a day that belonged to Franklin.
But without taking away from the poignant moment it was, we can’t shy away from speaking about something wrong that happened at one of the most televised events in entertainment history. That too, in the era of #MeToo, with total impunity.
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