SZA Manager Cancelled Her VMAs Performance Because She Wasn’t Nominated For ‘Artist Of The Year’

SZA’s Manager Cancelled Her VMAs Performance Because MTV Didn’t Nominate Her For ‘Artist Of The Year’

This year’s VMAs were definitely lit, but it was one performance we were missing— SZA! According to The Hollywood Reporter, SZA was expected to perform following the success of her sophomore album ‘SOS’, but her manager cancelled after MTV didn’t give the singer a nomination for ‘Artist Of The Year’.

Though SZA did get a number of nominations for this year’s awards, her name was oddly missing from the ‘Artist Of The Year’ category despite having one of the best years of her career. Punch, her manager, says it’s complete disrespect for her to be left off and he questioned MTV about the decision.

“Obviously, she had one of the best years, if not the best year, of any artist at that point. I don’t see why she wouldn’t be nominated for artist of the year. It just really didn’t make any sense to me. It’s disrespectful,” SZA’s manager, Terrence “Punch” Henderson, tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by The Neighborhood Talk (@theneighborhoodtalk)

“They couldn’t give a clear answer as to why she wasn’t [nominated]. It was just, ‘Well, she’s nominated for all these other [awards].’”

“Why wouldn’t she be nominated for artist of the year? Even with the other artists that were nominated for artist of the year, some of them were even off-cycle. They didn’t have an album out. I mean, no disrespect to them or anybody else; everybody’s great and all of that, but still, you can’t discredit what SOS has done and is currently doing,” he continues.

After MTV couldn’t give him a straight forward answer, he dropped the performance all together. “I figured, why go perform and do this if she’s not going to be respected to the highest level? So, it was my call to actually pull out of the performance,” he explains.

“She’s a very sweet person and she’s not for all of the nonsense and the politics and the back and forth and all of that. So, our feelings might be a little different.But ultimately,” he adds, “I felt it was disrespectful and I was very stern on that and influencing that. If there’s any issues or backlash and all of that, I’m taking all of that.”