Shakira, this year’s Video Vanguard Award recipient at the MTV Video Music Awards, should have experienced a celebratory night for the award, but instead, her performance has received backlash from viewers concerning alleged lip-syncing.
To celebrate the massive award, the Colombian singer performed a medley of her hits, including Hips Don’t Lie, She Wolf and Whenever Wherever.
Some commenters were incredulous online, asking, “Did shakira lip sync her entire VMAS performance?” Another wrote, “love me some shakira but good god she cannot lip sync”, while another fan came to Shakira’s defence: “If Shakira wants to lip sync she can, she literally invented music, dancing, and the vmas ??”
“Shakira switching from lip sync to live singing is honestly iconic,” another fan wrote on Twitter. So, it wasn’t all bad – Shakira showcasing a performance, lip-synced or not, is exciting to watch.
Shakira’s performance received applause from Too Fab, with the publication noting the “drama” and “statement” she brought with her stage presence. Not to mention that Latin pop music has been booming in popularity in recent years, and Shakira has been at the forefront of that movement.
You can watch Shakira’s performance and her acceptance of the Video Vanguard Award below.
There have been plenty of instances of alleged lip-syncing at award shows, from the Grammy Awards to the Country Music Awards. More often than not, artists are accused of lip-syncing over a pre-recorded track.
“So the winner of the biggest category of the night lip-synched in the biggest moment on the show?” singer Eric Church said after Garth Brooks admitted to lip-syncing at the 2017 Country Music Association Awards. “Fuck that!”
He added, “I didn’t like his excuse at all. I felt like he was speaking for the other nominees. I can speak for myself — I’m not lip-synching. If I can’t sing, I won’t sing, or I’ll sing badly. But at least you’ll get what you get.”
