Kelly Rowland Says Chris Brown ‘Deserves Grace’ After He Was Booed at AMAs

Kelly Rowland shut down a round of booing aimed at Chris Brown Sunday night (Nov. 20) when she accepted an American Music Award on his behalf — and now, she’s defending him once again. When the 41-year-old Destiny’s Child star was asked after the show whether Brown, who violently assaulted Rihanna in 2009, deserved forgiveness for his past actions, she insisted that “everybody deserves grace.”

“I believe that grace is very real, and we all need a dose of it,” Rowland told TMZ in a video published Tuesday (Nov. 22). “Before we point fingers at anybody, we should realize how grateful we are for every moment that we get.”

“Even our own things that we have, I just think it’s important to remember to be humans,” she continued.

Last weekend, Rowland attended the AMAs as a presenter and accepted the favorite male R&B artist award in place of Brown, who wasn’t present at the show. When she announced that the 33-year-old “Run It!” singer had won, she was met with several loud boos from those in the audience.

“Excuse me, chill out,” she said in the moment, sternly holding a finger up to shush the upset crowd. “I want to tell Chris thank you so much for making great R&B music, and I want to tell him thank you for being an incredible performer. I love you, congratulations.”

Brown, of course, has long been a controversial figure in the music industry. Though he was convicted for beating Rihanna (his girlfriend at the time) on the morning of the 2009 Grammys and has been accused of several acts of violence in the years since, he remains a steadfast contributor to the Hot 100 and maintains nearly 50 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

“You know what, we all need to be forgiven for anything that we could be doing,” she also told TMZ. “We all come up short in some sort of way.”

“We are humans,” she added. “Everybody deserves grace, period.”