Jessica Simpson had a little problem the other day. No, it had nothing to do with rumors linking her with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. No, it had nothing to do with rumors connecting her with John Mayer. No, it wasn’t a property dispute with ex-hubby Nick Lachey. No, it wasn’t a backstage cat fight with Britney Spears. No, she didn’t reiterate that she still isn’t sure if Chicken of the Sea consists of chicken or fish.
This problem occurred on a more prestigious stage than she’s ordinarily used to occupying. At the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night in Washington, before a packed house of dignitaries topped by President Bush and the first lady, Jessica got up to sing her rendition of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.” Dolly was seated with George W. and Laura. And please, no cracks about the biggest boobs in the U.S. gathered under one roof. Have a little respect.
But Jessica blew it. She flubbed the lyrics, then left the stage in tears. It didn’t help that the lyrics were on cue cards, so the gaffe had nothing to do with a failure of memory but rather an inability to repeat words that were written in block letters on a large piece of cardboard. Vintage Jess.
I feel for the kid. She wanted to honor Dolly, who is one of her idols. She may even have wanted to redeem herself in Dolly’s eyes for setting Southern women back decades by appearing in “The Dukes of Hazzard.” But Jessica became overcome with emotion and made an honest mistake. Said Jessica after her screw-up: “Dolly, you make me so nervous. I can’t even sing the words right.” Apparently singing for Dolly turned her into a basket case, but performing for the leader of the free world and his wife would have been a snap.
It seems Jessica asked if she could sing the song over again, and her wish was granted, so when the performance airs on television on Dec. 26, the incident will not be shown. I can understand that. It would have been a celebrity under pressure having a human moment, and there’s really no place for that.
But such incidents have appeared on the nation’s radar before. People are fallible, after all, and in most cases in life they don’t get do-overs. Here are five such instances of famous flubs among singers, who seem to err more often than the average person who has to utter words for a living. While there have been many over the years, these stand out for sheer embarrassment:
Ashlee Simpson on “Saturday Night Live”
That’s right, it’s a family tradition. Jessica’s younger sister appeared on “SNL” on Oct. 23, 2004, to perform her single “Pieces of Me.” Her band began the song. Ashlee held her microphone down near her waist, but the audience began to hear her voice singing the song. At first, everybody suspected the obvious: She had trained her belly button to sing. Then they went with a more plausible explanation: She was a ventriloquist. But the sordid truth eventually came out: She was lip-syncing the song. Later, her father, Joe Simpson, explained that Ashlee suffered from acid reflux disease and that the backup vocal track was to help augment her croaky voice because her vocal cords were swollen. That got a bigger laugh than any of the show’s skits. Joe Simpson later explained: “Every artist that I know in this business has had vocal problems at some time — from Celine on down.” From Celine Dion on down? That’s only a tiny handful. Ashlee made the whole humiliating incident worse by blaming it all on her band. “SNL” has had other incidents before. Elvis Costello once began a song, then stopped and played “Radio, Radio,” a song critiquing the radio industry that the show didn't want him to play. Sinead O’Connor once ripped up a photo of the pope. Neither lip-synced, nor blamed his or her band.
Robert Goulet before the Ali-Liston fight
On May 25, 1965 — a time when Goulet was among the nation’s top entertainment personalities — he was enlisted to sing the national anthem before a rematch in Lewiston, Maine, between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston. Goulet was born in the U.S. but moved to Canada at the age of 14 and burst into prominence with his role as Sir Lancelot in “Camelot” on Broadway in 1960. And he had never performed the national anthem in public. When he belted out the song, he said, “By the dawn’s early NIGHT” instead of “light.” Since 1965, of course, there have been many, many mangled versions of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And messing up one word hardly qualifies as a national disgrace when looked back upon now. But this was perhaps the first such blunder to occur at the dawn of the mass media age, thus critics really ran with it, and for years after he became synonymous with “The Star-Mangled Banner.” Also it didn’t help that the fight lasted only one round — Ali won by knockout on a mystery punch — so more people wound up talking about the anthem than the bout. He told the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times in 2001: “I sang one word wrong. I sang, ‘Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early night’ … instead of ‘light.’ One word is all I messed up, and everyone built it up from that time on into something else entirely.” Yes, Robert, and your point is?
Milli Vanilli live on MTV
This was actually just one incident in a larger scandal that eventually brought down this fabricated no-talent duo. During a live performance of their hit single “Girl You Know It’s True” that was taped by MTV in Connecticut in 1989, Milli Vanilli — a.k.a. Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus — had a little mistake. It should be noted that also in ’89 Milli Vanilli won a Grammy for Best New Artist, but within the industry there were loud and persistent whispers that they didn’t do their own singing. In the Connecticut gig, the recording of their song started to skip, a telltale sign that something was amiss. That wasn’t so outrageous, because by that time other artists had been known to back up their live performances with recorded tracks. But in the grand scheme of this scheme, it was significant. In 1990, after being hounded on the subject by the media, Fab and Rob lobbied their promoter-manager, Frank Farian, the man who made Milli Vanilli possible, to sing on their own records. Eventually Farian admitted the two were frauds, and the Grammy was revoked. In a short time, Milli Vanilli was no more. Rob and Fab tried a comeback in the late ‘90s, but had no luck. Pilatus endured some hard times with drugs and a short stint in prison. He died of a drug overdose in 1998 at the age of 32.
Roseanne Barr at a San Diego Padres game
On July 25, 1990, before the San Diego Padres played the visiting Cincinnati Reds, Roseanne settled in to sing the national anthem. It’s difficult to say whether she forgot any lyrics, because she shrieked her way through the entire performance. In this case, her entire version was one big flub. Reportedly team officials told her to have fun with it, and she took that to mean she could spit and grab her crotch to mimic baseball players. The fans present reacted with a cascade of boos, and she was ripped by the national media. The first President Bush even weighed in on it, calling her version “disgusting” and “a disgrace.” In her 1994 book, “My Lives,” she wasn’t exactly repentant: “I’m not Anne Frank, gotta hide out because the PC police are gonna find me and kill me. I’m an American, and that is my song, too. What you gotta be — Pavarotti (who sometimes lip-syncs, by the way), or Liza or Barbra to sing the national anthem?” Obviously, she takes the same approach to grammar that she does to singing.
Carl Lewis at a Chicago Bulls game
Yes, another national anthem butchering. What do you expect? Most professional singers will tell you that it takes someone with a lot of range to nail “The Star-Spangled Banner,” so amateurs like the former Olympic track star should have thought better of it before getting up in front of thousands of people in a packed arena and a national TV audience on Jan. 23, 1993. Lewis started off OK, emoting like Seal during a love ballad on the first word, “Oh.” Then it quickly descended into vocalist hell. When he bellowed the line, “And the rockets’ red glare … ” the sound that followed approximated that made by a gazelle when its throat is ripped by a cheetah. Many in the audience, including Michael Jordan, began laughing heartily. Then Lewis said, “Uh, oh. I’ll make up for it now,” which historians will tell you is not among the song’s original lyrics. And sadly, he didn’t make up for it. The crowd greeted the merciful ending with boos. The best part was ESPN’s Charley Steiner noting afterward that it sounded like it was written by “Francis Scott Off Key.”