Ice Spice Shares Shares Apology Following Australian Festival Backlash

New York rapper Ice Spice has used the penultimate show of her current touring schedule to share a brief apology for a controversial appearance at an Australian festival last week.

Ice Spice has spent the new year period in Australia, where she was booked to perform at a couple of festivals, including the Beyond the Valley festival in the state of Victoria, and three legs of the Wildlands Festival in capital cities Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.

The Brisbane edition of Wildlands took place on New Year’s Eve, just one day ahead of Ice Spice’s 25th birthday, and as one of the headliners, the musician was scheduled to perform in the 10:30pm – 11pm slot. While her spot was reportedly brought forward by five minutes, Ice Spice was ultimately 30 minutes late to the stage, and didn’t appear before the crowd until 10:55pm.

Due to the festival’s tight scheduling ahead of the evening’s celebrations, Ice Spice was only able to perform two songs – including “Deli” and “Princess Diana” – before her microphone was cut off during “In Ha Mood”.

“At 11.01pm – they gave her an extra minute – they cut the mic and you heard the collective sigh from the crowd,” journalist and podcaster Brenton Larney told The Guardian. “They’d been waiting for a while and they get two songs?

“So that was a bit ridiculous and it was just really disrespectful how she walked off, she was laughing, they tried to give her flowers for her birthday and she just shrugged them off,” he added, noting that it seemed as though the musician “didn’t want to be there”.

Though initially silent in the aftermath of the festival, organizers later addressed the situation via their Instagram comment section, explaining that Ice Spice’s microphone had to be cut off to ensure the rest of the festival – which included a countdown from U.K. duo Chase & Status – ran to time.

“We understand that Ice Spice’s delayed arrival caused some disappointment,” the festival stated. “Managing a stacked festival means that we have to be extremely firm with set times. We had a strict curfew of 12:30 and need to ensure that the final act went on stage on time, so everyone could enjoy the New Year’s Eve countdown.”

While Ice Spice was herself silent following the event, the musician returned to the stage on Saturday (Jan. 4) to perform at the Perth leg of the festival, where she briefly addressed the situation ahead during her set, as local radio station Youth Jam have reported.

“I’m sorry guys, surely y’all can forgive me,” she was quoted as saying. “It was my birthday and it takes a long time to look like a Barbie.” The statement was ostensibly shared as a brief lead in to her next song, the Nicki Minaj collaboration “Barbie World”.

Ice Spice wrapped up her current touring plans the following day (Jan. 5) with a performance in Adelaide, closing out the global tour in support of her debut album, Y2K!. The record received largely positive reviews from critics and reached No. 18 on the Billboard 200 and No. 3 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.