John P. Filo/CBSAdd Sting to the list of people who doesn’t think he should have been quite so prominent at the Grammys.
Following the Grammy Awards last month, many fans cried foul that Lorde wasn’t offered a solo performance slot, given that she was nominated for Album of the Year — and the only woman nominated in the category, at that.
Fans also complained that while Lorde was snubbed, Sting was omnipresent during the telecast: He appeared in a comedy sketch, presented an award, and performed his decades-old hit “Englishman in New York” as well as his new duet with Shaggy, “Don’t Make Me Wait.”
In an interview with the Canadian Press published in the Montreal Gazette, Sting says if he had known that Lorde hadn’t been given the opportunity to perform, he would have stepped aside.
“That really surprised me, that an artist who was up for [album] of the year didn’t get a slot and I can’t quite understand why that would have happened, but of course we didn’t know that,” Sting explains. “If she’d told us that, we would have said, ‘Please take our spot, we don’t need it.'”
In his defense, Sting said he and Shaggy “didn’t have much to do with” the amount of screen time they got, either.
“They just threw us on there,” he explained. “We were happy with the real estate. It was fun.”
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
