LL Cool J heard about the Miranda Lambert incident — and strongly disagrees with her.
Lambert controversially halted her show this weekend to reprimand a group of fans in the crowd for taking selfies during her performance. The footage subsequently went viral and even became a subject of discussion on “The View” — and during LL Cool J’s latest interview.
“Miranda, get over it, baby,” he said on the “Mercedes in the Morning” show Wednesday.
“They’re fans,” the “Mama Said Knock You Out” rapper continued. “Let me tell you something about art — and I say this with love. So, your job as an artist is to create art. The way people choose to interact with that art or engage in it and appreciate it is up to them.”
Lambert, who is currently helming a Las Vegas residency, had just started singing a rendition of her 2017 hit “Tin Man” on Saturday when she commanded her band to stop playing. The country singer-songwriter went on to criticize a small group of fans for taking photos.
“I’m gonna stop right there for a second, sorry,” Lambert told the crowd. “These girls are worried about their selfie and not listening to the songs, [and] it’s pissing me off a little bit. I don’t like it — at all. We’re here to hear some country music tonight.”
The incident notably followed a string of other performances being halted for undesired etiquette: Bebe Rexha was recently hit in the face by a cellphone on stage, for instance, just one week before Pink involuntarily received the cremated ashes of a fan’s mother.
Lambert halted the show on her own volition, however, and wasn’t struck by an object or tackled. LL Cool J found it odd that she would stop singing merely because selfies were being taken and said: “What about all the thousands of people who aren’t doing that?”
“What, do you got rules?” he continued. “‘No yellow shirts!’ Where does it end?”
The hip-hop icon has certainly rocked all types of crowds himself and arguably put Def Jam Recordings on the map with his platinum 1985 debut “Radio.” He thus appeared genuinely baffled by Lambert’s decision to interrupt her own show to reiterate unspoken guidelines.
“If you want to come to my show and you want to sit there and eat a bowl of potato salad with a baseball hat down to your nose, that’s what you choose to do,” he said. “You got to let the fans do what they want to do.”
While one of the women who comprised the selfie-taking group told NBC News she was “appalled” by Lambert’s comments, LL Cool J himself said he has “nothing unkind to say” — and wished Lambert “the best” during Wednesday’s interview.
“She has the right to her feelings, but for me, I let the fans be the fans and do what they want to do,” he said.