Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown had one of the biggest hits of the late-2000s with “No Air.” The duet reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, sold over 3 million copies in the U.S. and earned a 2009 Grammy nomination for best pop collaboration with vocals.
However, the day before the award ceremony came Brown’s infamous assault of his then-girlfriend, Rihanna.
Sparks was a recent guest on The Cut’s game show Truth or Drink, and host Omar mentioned he saw Sparks perform “No Air” with Brown during one of his 2022 One Of Them Ones tour stops. The American Idol winner admitted that was the “first time they performed the song together since 2008.” However, she also wanted everyone watching to know she was “not the reason” they hadn’t performed the song, and she hoped “they get to do more songs together.”
As a follow-up, Omar asked the singer, “What happened to you during the Grammys in 2008?”
She explained, “I found out like everybody else found out. I’ve actually never told this in public before. We were nominated for best pop R&B collaboration that year.”
Sparks revealed she was blindsided, just like the public.
“As soon as I stepped foot on that red carpet, I had both of the label publicists coming up to me and going, ‘You know nothing.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Cause I really didn’t know anything! I didn’t go to Clive [Davis’] party.”
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The 33-year-old singer continued explaining how the rumors swelled as the evening went on.
“As the night progresses, it’s like Google alerts — at that time — and more and more people started getting the news about it. And I’m sitting just looking at everyone like … ‘I don’t know.’ I was also a kid; I’m 18 years old at this point. Like … then, I get it to my phone, and I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God!’”
“Not that I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m better than all these people,'” Sparks continued. “But the song was huge. So I was like, we have a really good chance of actually winning this. They announced the winner, and it ends up being Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, and I was like … You know, I was like, wait, what? I was so blown, and I just couldn’t believe it.”
“A lot of stuff that happened after that was not me,” she admitted, and she mentioned “the powers that be had a hand” in things.
“That was a really tough time for me because I just didn’t understand; I didn’t get it. And I also didn’t know about the ins and outs of the industry and the puppetry and the hands that can go into a lot of things,” she said.
Brown recently hit the headlines again after he won favorite male R&B artist at the 2022 American Music Awards, where producers canceled his Michael Jackson tribute moments before the show.
Kelly Rowland publicly defended Brown as the audience booed when he won.
Sparks spoke with TMZ, sharing the same sentiment of forgiveness for her co-singer.
“People deserve to be able to grow and learn and be able to live their life without things hanging over them,” she told the outlet. “Everybody deserves that, him especially.”
Check out Jordin Sparks playing Truth or Drink below:
