Most awkward Brits moments: From Adele flipping the bird to Jack Whitehall stirring Little Mix and Piers Morgan beef

Ah, smell that? It’s the sweet scent of the Brit Awards arriving for another year of musical mayhem.

For 2021 the ceremony returns to the O2 as part of the government’s Event Research Programme. After a year of no major events, let alone in-person awards, the arena will tonight welcome 4,000 guests, including 2,500 frontline workers.

Will fewer people equal fewer gaffes and controversies compared to other years? Oh we hope not. So to get you excited about what moments lie ahead tonight, as Jack Whitehall takes to the stage to host for another year, we thought we’d take a walk down memory lane and revisit some of the most awkward and shockingly pearl-clutching and cringe-worthy moments from the decades gone.

Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood hosting (1989)

Few Brit Awards are as notorious as the 1989 ceremony hosted by Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood – which was the TV equivalent of watching a car crash unfold in slow motion.

Quite aside from the sheer awkwardness of the mismatched hosts, everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong – from cues being missed and people turning up onstage when they weren’t supposed to be there, to that point when they completely forgot to announce the nominees for best newcomer altogether, leaving presenters Ronnie Wood and Bill Wyman looking ever so slightly lost and puzzled.

To this day it can still only be viewed from the comfort of behind one’s fingers.

Jarvis Cocker moons crowd during Michael Jackson performance (1996)

It had all been going so well – Michael Jackson delivering an epic performance of Earth Song, surrounded by meaningful backdrops and sad-looking children – only for, as the song reached its crescendo, for Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker to invade the stage, look around quizzically and promptly wiggle his bum at the crowd before making a swift exit.

Which of course led to the performance going down in Brits history for all the wrong reasons.

The singer later revealed the stage dash had been ‘a form of protest at the way Michael Jackson sees himself as some kind of Christlike figure with the power of healing’.

Brandon Block’s stage invasion (2000)

Long before his Celebrity Big Brother days, Brandon achieved notoriety for rushing onstage as Ronnie Wood and Thora Birch attempted to present the prize for best soundtrack – after his friends managed to convince him he was the winner (he wasn’t).

A slight altercation with the Rolling Stones star followed before the DJ was escorted from the stage by security, and normality resumed once again.

Russell Brand causes controversy (2007)

The Brits wasn’t shown live for quite some time after the Fox and Fleetwood debacle, but in 2007 producers took the plunge and aired it live.

Except that didn’t end well either, given that host Russell Brand promptly cracked jokes about the Queen’s ‘naughty bits’ and the ‘friendly fire’ death of a British soldier, and ITV was promptly bombarded with complaints.

Here he is in one of the calmer moments from the show – presenting Oasis with their outstanding contribution award – but you get the idea.

Liam Gallagher throws the mic (2010)

AKA that moment when the Oasis singer, onstage to collect the prize for best Brits album of the past three decades, promptly gave away his award and tossed the microphone into the crowd – causing a 10-minute delay in proceedings.

This prompted host Peter Kay to quip: ‘What a k**bhead,’ as he returned to the stage. That went well then.

Adele flips the bird (2012)

Adele’s big moment was cut short in 2012 when James Corden had to cut off her speech to introduce Blur.

Rules around ITV ad breaks have been cited as the reason for the interruption, but that didn’t stop Adele from reacting in memorable style by flipping the bird in front of the entire audience, not to mention the viewing public.

Think of the children, everybody!

Madonna takes a tumble (2015)

Iconic? Yes. But also controversial on account of the gasps heard around the world when Madonna’s much-hyped performance at the 2015 ceremony took an unexpected turn when about a minute into her performance of Living For Love she took a tumble down the stage steps after getting her cape caught.

Fortunately she managed to recover herself and complete the performance, but it didn’t stop the ‘if you’ve had an accident at work’ memes from reigning supreme on Twitter.

Jack Whitehall stirs the beef between Little Mix and Piers Morgan (2019)

It was no secret around the time of the 2019 Brits, Piers Morgan had the smoke coming from his ears over the iconic Little Mix shoot which saw them pose nude.

Wanting to bring it all back up, the host asked: ‘What would you say to that dutty wasteman?’

Jesy Nelson, who was left shocked by the whole thing, simply replied: ‘Jack!’

‘What? I want some beef at some Brits,’ he continued. ‘Not a fan of Piers Morgan?’

After the X Factor winner appeared to say ‘no’ off-mic, Jack said: ‘It’s fine, haters gonna hate, players gonna play.

‘Okay, this was awkward… I love Little Mix though!’

Brits is roasted for lack of female nominees (2020)

Last year saw the Brits taken to task over its lack of female nominees – despite calls for more to be done in the categories.

Host Jack Whitehall didn’t mince his words at this disparity – with a minority in the non-gender-specific categories, and none at all in the British album of the year and British group categories – remarking that in the evening’s eco-conscious spirit of sustainability, ‘the Brits has been recycling all the same excuses for why so few women were nominated.’

That wasn’t all as Paloma Faith gave a cheeky shout-out to the ‘underrepresented group… men’ before presenting international male solo artist, while Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis said, while accepting an award, he hoped to ‘see more women in this category next year’.

(There are more women, sure, with Little Mix nominated this year, but c’mon.)

The Brit Awards airs tonight at 8pm on ITV.

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