I went to visit my friend at college this week and we decided to turn on the NBA All Star game. It started off with the legendary Kevin Hart introducing the players. Canadian music group,  The Barenaked Ladies performed their national anthem “Oh Canada” followed by Fergie performing the Star Spangled Banner. I was a little puzzled to hear Fergie would be taking a break from her “Fergalicious” ways to perform the National Anthem. Thirty seconds into the performance, I knew it would be trending on Twitter the minute it was over.  Fergie has a reputation of being a hot singer who shows a lot of skin and has a powerful voice. However, she may have taken her sexy reputation too far. I don’t know if Fergie was attempting to put a sultry spin on our national anthem or she was sick or something, but either way… the performance was awful. I actually felt extremely uncomfortable just watching it. A song that usually takes a few minutes to perform felt like hours just to watch.

As the song went on, various cameras pointed at celebrities attending the game…most of which were laughing or smirking. Some of the players were even laughing. Team captain, Steph Curry was guilty, along with opposing team captain Lebron James who looked like he was biting his tongue and trying his hardest not to laugh. Draymond Green’s reaction to the song may have been the best. The player had a blank stare and broke into a smile within a few seconds. It’s like when the teacher tells you and your friend to stop laughing so you try to stop and then you both break into laughter a couple seconds later. Green’s reaction was so popular it’s been made into a meme and viewed millions of times. Other celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel and Chance The Rapper were caughted smirking during the song. Were they trying to hold in laughs? Or do they really find that much joy in our nation’s anthem? We’re not sure. It’s almost like the man behind the camera specifically tried to find people who were laughing or about to. He himself was probably laughing behind the camera…we know we were.

Fergie tried to justify her performance after receiving backlash from people worldwide. “I’m a risk taker artistically, but clearly this rendition didn’t strike the intended tone,” she said. “I love this country and honestly tried my best.” (Respers France – CNN) Some say Fergie was trying to go a jazzy route with the song, some say it was just downright bad.

I knew it would be trending on Twitter, and boy was I right. The minute I logged onto the app my entire feed was full of #Fergie. People were offended, baffled, and confused.  I saw tweets like “When The Players Can’t Even Hold Their Laugh” and “Can someone tell Fergie the National Anthem isn’t meant to be a sexual song?” Clearly people are upset, but I suppose she will just added to the list of artists that performed the national anthem poorly and we will all move on.