And Finally Artist News

Adam Levine apologises to MTV VMAs after Childish Gambino snub claim

By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 6 August 2018

Maroon 5’s Adam Levine has apologised to MTV after claiming that it had snubbed Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ video in the nominations for this year’s Video Music Awards. Actually – as Levine subsequently learned – Gambino was one of the most nominated artists this year, with seven nods in total, including for Video Of The Year.

On Friday, Levine posted on Instagram: “This year, Childish Gambino released one of the most impactful, thought-provoking, and intelligent videos ever made. I’m sure he doesn’t care that he wasn’t nominated for a VMA because he’s cool as fuck and everything. But I care. Because I’m NOT that cool. And I still want MTV to mean something again. But it won’t. Ever. K bye”.

Quickly realising his error, he deleted the post, then tweeted: “Shit. I don’t usually put my foot in my mouth. But this time, I did. ‘This is America’ actually was nominated for Video Of The Year. I stand corrected. Bad Intel. So I guess MTV doesn’t suck quite as badly as I had originally thought”.

He then deleted that message, posting a revised update, saying: “Shit. I don’t usually put my foot in my mouth. But this time, I did. ‘This is America’ actually WAS nominated for seven VMAs. How I didn’t get the right info is beyond me. I stand corrected. I’m sorry MTV. Still hate you though. But mostly, I’m sorry”.

After much confusion from fans about this rapidly revised and re-revised outburst, Levine returned to Instagram yesterday to explain what had happened. Basically, he’d pretty much just guessed that Childish Gambino wasn’t nominated and then got angry about it for no reason.

“I guess that it had come up that at the VMAs ‘Girls Like You’, which is our song, didn’t get nominated – big shocker, doesn’t surprise me, they always blow us off”, he said. “And then, of course, I’m like, ‘Childish Gambino made the best video of the year, I bet you he’s not nominated'”.

So what happened next? “I guess, for some reason, we Googled something and it looked like… ah, look, I fucked up”, Levine continues. “There’s no way around it. Basically, he was nominated, like seven times over, and I look like a moron, but I’m just gonna come out here and say I fucked up. My bad. Sorry MTV, you did good, now make sure he wins”.

So, the moral of the story is, just because Maroon 5 aren’t nominated for an award, it doesn’t mean that something good also isn’t.