At the last second, Rihanna had to cancel her Grammy performance, because her doctors warned her against it because she has bronchitis.
The singer came to rehearsals to perform “Kiss It Better” twice, despite the protestations of her doctors, but their medical advice finally won out when they warned her that the performance could have “permanently damaged her vocal cords,” according to TMZ.
Unwilling to risk such permanent damage, Rihanna had to cancel at the last minute, tweeting out this apology: “‘#NAVY so sorry I couldn’t be there ….. Thanks Grammys and CBS for your support tonight.”
#NAVY so sorry I couldn't be there ….. Thanks Grammys and CBS for your support tonight.
— Rihanna (@rihanna) February 16, 2016
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We did get a bit of a peek into what her performance might have been like, though, as James Corden explained how he was supposed to introduce her.
“A couple of weeks ago, I got asked if I would introduce Rihanna on the show,” he explained. “I get this phone call saying Rihanna has this big thing planned for her song Kiss It Better and she’s doing like a whole ’80s talk show thing and it’s going to be really cool.”
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“What she wants you to do is be like an ’80s talk show host and I’d have funny glasses and I’d introduce Rihanna, she’d come out and do a song and then at the end she’d come and sit with me, like it was it’s own talk show which they called As It Lays.”