Good Morning America Can’t Handle Adam Lambert, Cancels His Appearance

And so the backlash begins! Mr. Adam Lambert got the controversy he may have possibly sought when ABC announced the cancellation of his performance on Wednesday morning’s “Good Morning America”:

An ABC spokesperson tells The New York Times that “Given his controversial American Music Awards performance, we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning.”

Adam Lambert AMAsA similar concert? Imagine if Adam Lambert was planning to re-create his scandalous American Music Awards performance at 8 am, giving Diane Sawyer and The American People a side of beejer with their morning coffee? You think Folger’s picks you up? Well how about MALE ON MALE ORAL SEX SIMULATION! OH NO!

Sidenote: By far our favorite part about Adam Lambert’s risque performance Sunday night was that someone in a control room at ABC was clearly freaking the fuck out when the male-on-male face-to-crotch moment went down (get it? WENT DOWN?) and responded by randomly MUTING AND awkwardly cutting away from the tight shot (get it?!) at the same time. Like as if this person saw the horror and threw themselves upon the controls in desperation. The visualization of what I think this moment looked like in the control room makes me LOL and I could do a good impression of it in person but we are a legit media outlet with no video budget SO WE ARE WRITING WORDS INSTEAD.

Really though, this cancellation comes about because ABC racked up over a thousand complaints from Lambert’s Sunday night’s performance at the AMAs and they can’t be upsetting their morning advertisers. Not to mention all the boys mislead to believe it only takes half a second to get their boyfriend off. You know how it goes…

So the fine community of Twitter responded with #ShameOnYouABC which shot straight to the top of the trending topic list.

Also, Mediaite has a great video of Adam Lambert talking to Access America after the world lost it’s homophobic innocence, where  he speaks about the possible censoring and editing of his song/performance as discrimination.

Here are some of the transcribed highlights and quotes of this quick encounter with this weirdo lady from Access America:

AA Lady: “Put your hand out like this.” (Adam complies. She gives him a slap on the wrist. A slap on the wrist!)

“You know not everybody all around the country can take that!”

Adam Lambert: (Looking rather perplexed) “Well, I was hoping they couldn’t.”

He responds to the hosts claim that he will be edited:

“If it’s edited, that’s discrimination. I will be a little disappointed because there is discrimination going on in this country, there’s a big double standard. Female pop artists have been doing things provocative like that for years and the fact that I’m a male and will be edited and discriminated against could be a problem, a BIG problem.”

“Shock Rock is something that existed, for example in the 70s, Alice Cooper, David Bowie… you had artists who pushed the envelope and that’s what made them fresh. I think that surprise is part of entertainment.”

Um we couldn’t agree more — though we’d specify a “gay man,” as usually straight men are encouraged and celebrated for engaging in all kinds of sexual escapades/gyrating with other women on stage or in their videos. Let us not forget the Britney/Madonna/Aguilera smooch that the cameras (or various men in the control room) couldn’t get enough of back in 2003. It may or may not have been my screenscaver for a few months years. Also remember when Ozzy Ozbourne bit a bat’s head off? That was awesome.

In the end, it looks like CBS wins cause Adam Lambert has since been booked for The Early Show tomorrow (Wednesday) morning and David Letterman tomorrow night.

Of this scheduled performance on Letterman, Lambert says: “You’re gonna see a song that’s a different side of me as an artist. It’s more about vulnerability and love, and the search for love. Not shenanigans in the club.” After all, Letterman’s probs had his fill of sexual shenanigans on his show this year and will probs be okay with someone else’s escapades on center stage.

Oh Adam. I’ll shenanigan my way into your club any time!

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Alex

Cofounder and Design Director of Autostraddle. Professional web/graphic designer. Whiskey enthusiast. Drumming hobbyist. A past speaker at the 2010 BlogHer Conference ("Good Blog Design: The Role of Layout in an Online Medium"), 2013 Salon LGBTQ Conference ("Innovative Best Practices for Brand-Blogger Campaigns") and featured in the Los Angeles Edition of Refinery29's 30 Under 30 in 2013. Co-owns and manages Tully's Training, a dog training company in Los Angeles. Twitter: @a_ex Instagram: alexxxvegaaa

Alex has written 100 articles for us.

24 Comments

  1. This is total bullshit!!!!

    To think that Adam Lambert would repeat his AMA performance on an early morning show just shows that people don’t really “get” who Adam is. He certainly isn’t stupid.

    Although I didn’t like the AMA performance (for reasons other than the content), I still love his music.

    I won’t be watching GMA ever again. Stupid, closed minded people make my stomach turn.

    Kudos for the CBS Morning Show!

    • I know, right? Really though another underlying issue is why Americans are so freaked out about seeing sexual things happen. Mabye if these people were less repressed about sexual expression themselves, they wouldn’t be so unhappy and scared of what sexual freedom (w/r/t homos) might do to everyone else’s comfort level and subsequent self-assurance and happiness.

  2. Discrimination my ass, that performance was shit covered in shit sprinkles with shit frosting lathered on top. I don’t blame ABC for not wanting to eat shit.

    The female artists doing the provocative performances are usually classy about it, despite everyone’s tendency to only see negatives like janet jackson’s stunts. Tastefully provocative=/=rubbing someones face in your crotch with bondage slaves running around ever which way.

    • Gaz, the “shit” description you gave made me a little uncomfortable, but despite that, I understand the other part of your comment. I don’t know yet if I agree with it 100%, but I certainly get what you’re saying.

  3. idk, i think if anyone- male female gay straight whatever was grinding a face in their crotch on stage id be like whaaao nelly

    • yea, I think it is less about that he’s a gay dude and more about the body parts involved. Sure the Madonna, Britney, Christina kiss was not criticized as much, but that was a kiss.. not a vaj facial scrub. I get what he is saying, but I think he would be taking less heat if it was just a kiss.

  4. Awesome article. Thanks for seeing the humor in this mess, and I’m looking forward to watching the Early Show tomorrow morning.

    • Well, sometimes not. But that’s fine everyone has a right to stimulate oral sex on stage and everyone has a right to take half a second. Or three seconds, etc.

  5. Please, doesn’t Good Morning America know that morning sex is, like, the best?! It’s the perfect time for someone’s face to be in someone else’s crotch.

  6. Eminem bragged about multiple rapes under his belt.

    Janet felt up and grabbed her dancer’s crotch in such a rough manner as to have him fall forward and then bent that same male dancer over to get “butt access”.

    Rihanna had over 10 rifles on stage after she got off a sexual torture device.

    Shakira had half naked female dancers visually humping the audience en masse.

    Gaga smashed whiskey bottles and her crotch was out, as always.

    The show was full of sex driven performances w half naked dancers. Had Britney grinded against her male dancers singing about threesomes, it would’ve been just Britney.

    Adam’s album is full of variety, every track has a different energy.
    FYE is about sexual aggression and power, did they expect rainbows and puppies? It was a sexual song and he gave a sexual performance. Nothing to do with orientation. His performance was sexually driven, not sexually gay. They’re so scared. The bandmate he kissed is straight. There were even more women in his performance than men. ABC cut away from the male/male as if that’s porn but not the male/female as if that’s edgy.

    I feel sorry for people who don’t know how disarmingly sweet, polite, classy, hiilarious, warm, Adam is in person.

    The show had a warning rating & Adam was on at 11pm.

    WHO crossed over what lines? And the guy was going to sing a ballad on the GMAs like he did on Letterman.

    • I totally agree without a doubt,
      I think people can handle seeing women being sexual (or sexualized, or totally victimized) in any context in musical performances, whether it’s man on man or girl on girl — but actually if a lesbian got up there and pulled what adam did, they might be wary. Thought not as much. America is afraid of butch lesbians (who you’ll almost never see on an AMA stage), but it’s not afraid of pretty girls kissing. Sexualizing women drives our economy. Sexualizing men freaks everyone out, and excites those of us who believe the gender binary is ruining life a lot of the time.

      • yes. I agree with KD on all counts, and also with your mention of gender. i think a lot of it comes from society’s hatred of the feminine being so deep-rooted – masculine lesbians are loathed for posturing as and (most crucially) failing to BE men, and gay men are doubly loathed for betraying their divine birthright of masculinity and power by condescending to the level of the feminine and seeking domination from men (buttsex). obviously i don’t think all lesbians want to be men or that all gay men seek to be dominated; it’s just what i think is one driving force behind so much homophobia that no one can seem to name.

  7. As for his vocals, he admitted he was pitchy. But they were having major issues with the sound mix, esp of performances including heavy bass. Which is why Gaga, Janet and most of the others used autotune.

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