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10 Years Ago, Ashlee Simpson Had One Of The Most Embarrassing Moments In SNL History
By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 23, 2014
Modified Oct 23, 2014
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 23, 2014
Modified Oct 23, 2014
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Can you believe it's been ten years, to the day, since Ashlee Simpson tried to jig her way out of a terribly executed attempt at lip syncing on Saturday Night Live? It seems like just yesterday, and it's still really hard to watch:
Since then, some information about the embarrassing mishap has been revealed, and it appears that Ashlee hadn't planned on lip syncing that night after all. Here's director of SNL, Beth McCarthy-Miller, revisiting the moment and everything that led up to it, in an interview from last month:
"So in sound check she did something where she felt like she popped something in her throat. And in dress rehearsal she sang the first song and in the middle it popped again. So the second song she lip synced it because she literally couldn't sing it. Meeting between dress and air someone came up to me and said, 'This is the deal, we can give her a Cortizone shot in the throat, and see if that works, or we can have her lip sync.' So they decided she would lip sync."
You can watch the full interview below, where she explains that the drummer, "because she had been singing live, had never triggered both tracks... [for the second song] he triggered the first song by accident" in Pro Tools.
Ashlee also revisited the moment on her own reality TV show, which was in its second season in 2004.
Lorne Michaels said it's the first time a performer walked off the stage, and to his knowledge, the first time anyone's ever lip synced (outside of dance routines).
When we interviewed Ashlee after the SNL non-performance, she dodged any questions about it, leaving us with this.
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ashlee simpson
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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