The Syracuse performance kept going after the moment that sparked backlash online
What the first viral clip did not make clear was that the pole sequence was only one part of the interaction. Another recording picked up almost exactly where that footage stopped.
The Nashville fan later explained what viewers did not see
The clip made it look as though the woman simply regretted going onstage, but Gabrielle Cheyenne later pushed back on that interpretation. She said she had enjoyed the experience and objected to the abuse she received after the video spread.
Cheyenne also explained that she and her mother originally had floor seats before the tour’s team approached them and moved them into the VIP area. She said nobody told her in advance which performer she would be joining onstage, adding important context to Usher’s reaction when she appeared uncomfortable with the physical part of his routine.
PEOPLE’s account of the exchange reports that Cheyenne insisted she had not refused to go onstage and later criticized people who attacked her online. Her mother also posted a photo of Cheyenne with Usher’s wife, Jenn Goicoechea, in the VIP section after the performance.
Concert moments that became infamous for going too far
Provoking an audience is hardly a new part of live music. Long before phones could turn a few seconds of a concert into a viral clip, performers were finding much more dangerous and bizarre ways to leave crowds wondering what they had just witnessed.
Iggy Pop rolls in broken glass (late 1960s)
Chris Brown’s choreography may be explicit, but Iggy Pop built his early reputation around performances that could become physically dangerous.
Born James Newell Osterberg Jr., the singer became known for behavior that went far beyond normal stage theatrics. Rolling Stone and The Guardian have described shows where he smeared peanut butter across himself, vomited toward crowds, rolled over broken glass and injected himself with drugs.
That is one concert where standing near the front suddenly sounds much less appealing.
Ozzy Osbourne bites down on a bat (1982)
Ozzy Osbourne’s encounter with a bat has become one of rock’s most famous stage stories, but it grew out of an already strange routine. The late Black Sabbath singer had been throwing raw meat and animal parts into audiences during his shows.
Fans soon started returning the favor by throwing things back onto the stage. At one 1982 show, somebody threw a bat toward Osbourne.
In his 2010 autobiography I Am Ozzy, he recalled believing it was a rubber toy when he picked it up and bit into it. Instead, he said his mouth ‘was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid’.
The KLF fire blanks into crowd at the BRITs (1992)
The KLF took a very different route when they decided to make the 1992 BRIT Awards uncomfortable. The electronic group may be less familiar to younger listeners now, but their performance became one of the ceremony’s most notorious moments.
They teamed with punk band Extreme Noise Terror for a loud version of their Number One single ‘3am Eternal’. As the performance reached its end, frontman Bill Drummond appeared with a machine gun and fired blanks toward the audience.
There was little attempt to soften the exit afterward. Their publicist issued a statement that simply read: “The KLF have now left the music business.”
Amanda Palmer gets naked onstage to hit back at critics (2013)
Amanda Palmer’s 2013 stunt was less about danger and more about taking control of the attention being paid to her body. The former Dresden Dolls singer had performed at Glastonbury when a wardrobe malfunction briefly exposed her.
Palmer was annoyed that a British newspaper focused its coverage on that moment rather than her performance. Weeks later at London’s Roundhouse, she turned the criticism into part of the show and encouraged the crowd to record what came next.
She performed a diss track aimed at the publication, deliberately building toward a final visual response to the way her Glastonbury appearance had been covered.
