Almost four years after pianist Chloe Flower’s scene-stealing Grammy performance alongside Cardi B, she once again became a surprise breakout star during last night’s Golden Globes.
“Now every time I do an awards show I’m just going to expect to go viral,” Flower joked Wednesday morning, while speaking to The Daily Beast about her unexpectedly dramatic night at the Globes.
In case you missed it, Flower—who was chosen as the awards show’s in-house musician, charged with playing the piano live as the show came back from commercial break—became a trending topic on Twitter for all the wrong reasons.
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When several winners’ lengthy speeches were interrupted by a piano interlude, many people assumed the wrap-up music was coming from Flower herself. Michelle Yeoh, who won for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, responded to the cue by saying onstage, “Shut up, please. I can beat you up, OK? It’s that serious.” Elvis star Austin Butler quipped during his speech that they “could at least play ‘Suspicious Minds,’” while Colin Farrell curtly remarked, “You can forget that piano.”
Eventually, host Jerrod Carmichael took a moment during the NBC telecast to clarify that the play-off music was coming from a pre-recorded track. And Flower even responded to the backlash mid-show by tweeting, “I would never play piano over people’s speeches!!. I’m only playing when you see me on camera!”
Despite the confusion, Flower—a renowned Korean American musician and composer whose recently released single “Golden Hour” was inspired by her Globes gig—says she had a “great time” performing at the show. Not only that, but she got to meet Yeoh and clear the air about the play-off music kerfuffle. (So, no, don’t expect to see these two brawl anytime soon.) Below, Flower sets the record straight and tells us what you didn’t get to see on TV.
So how are you doing this morning?
Oh, you know, it’s been kind of crazy. I thought I was gonna have a spa day, but clearly that’s not happening!
I hope that still happens for you! I think you deserve it after the Globes last night. You were a big presence on the show, probably bigger than you had anticipated. Just for some background, how were you approached for the gig?
I was approached by [executive producer] Jesse Collins and his company. They said this year they want to try something different at the Globes and have a live performer. They’ve never had that in the history of the Golden Globes, and I loved the idea. I really wanted to do something that tied in my music and paid tribute to the iconic film scores and TV scores that we all love, because I get so much inspiration from them.
The idea was to do all of the commercial intros, solo piano, as my arrangements of different film scores. So yeah, I loved the idea. It happened over the holidays, so I didn’t have very much time to prepare. I worked really hard, spent 10 to 12 hours a day prepping for all of this, recorded like 40 different versions of different songs, and then did the show.
Yeah, I was curious about the song selections. Did you choose those all yourself, or were you asked to learn and arrange those different songs?
It was a collaborative effort where we all gave ideas on different songs. But they were all Golden Globe winners. Every song that we chose received a Golden Globe for best original song, best original score, best actor, best actress, best film… so we wanted to stay within that realm.
There were some song choices that I thought were particularly cool. I love that you played “Take My Breath Away” before Glenn Powell and Jay Ellis came onstage, as a nod to the original Top Gun. That was great.
Yeah, that was so fun! I was a little bit shaky on that one because, you know, all of this stuff was happening and I was like, oh my gosh! So “Take My Breath Away” specifically, I was like, I wish I could have played that better. I was a little rattled. But I love that song.
So let’s talk about why you were—very reasonably—rattled during the show. There were a few speeches, particularly early in the night, that went over time and the winners started to be played off. Michelle Yeoh, Austin Butler, and Colin Farrell all commented on the piano music that started to play while they were onstage. And everyone at home assumed that it was you playing it, because we had seen you on camera prior to that. So can you set the record straight about what really happened?
Yes. I was hired to play from the commercial breaks back into the segments. That was the only music I was asked to play at the piano during the show. The only time I’m playing is when you see me on camera, so I never played any of the walk-off music or anything throughout the show. That was all pre-recorded, and I was never supposed to play it; I never did play it.
I don’t have the power to make that kind of decision. And I would never play during someone’s speech. I’m not a producer, I’m an artist. So I’m not concerned with time. I just would never do that. That’s not something that I would feel comfortable doing, and it was never something that was asked of me. So that is setting the record straight, I hope.
They played a couple of my singles throughout the night, but that was all taken from pre-recorded tracks. What you saw me playing was coming back from commercial break, those short little bumps where I was on camera. That was me playing.
That makes a lot of sense, though I think there are a lot of people who are still thinking this morning that Michelle Yeoh wants to fight you, which must be really wild for you.
No! [laughs] It’s funny because the winners’ portraits were happening right next to the piano, so a lot of the winners had to walk past me in order to take the portrait. And I stopped Michelle on her way to the portrait and I told her, “I would never play during your speech. I was not playing.” And we held hands, and she was really nice and gracious, and it was totally fine.
And Austin, I did the same. I spoke to Austin. I didn’t speak to Colin. I didn’t speak to Eddie [Murphy]. With Austin, I did stop him too because I knew Austin from my mentor Babyface’s studio. I stopped him and I was like, “Oh my god, I would never play during your speech, that was not me playing.”
I think in the moment when you’re on stage… I don’t take it personally because they’re trying to say thank you, and I don’t feel like it was directed at me, you know? And it’s the first time in the history of the Globes that you have a live musician, so it just automatically gets directed to me because I’m the one there. There’s no face to the sound people [backstage]. So I became the face of that, unfortunately. But I didn’t take it personally. I mean, I saw them both afterwards, and they were so nice.
Did they apologize to you?
I mean, there was no real time for an apology because it was mid-show. But I was like, “I didn’t play!” and they were very lovely, they were like, “Oh, OK!” And it was totally fine. You know, it’s so important to me, Michelle Yeoh… I was so excited to see her. When they asked me on the red carpet “who are you most excited to see?” the first name that came into my mind was Michelle Yeoh, but I couldn’t say it because I didn’t know she was coming. I didn’t see her name on the list.
When I saw that she won and I saw her stand up, that was the first time I knew she was there. And I was like, oh my gosh, I’m so excited she’s here! I was clapping harder than anybody. I was like, screaming from the piano, kind of unprofessional. And I was watching her speech and I was just so happy for her. I still love her, I’m still a super fan of Michelle Yeoh. I respect her so much as an artist, as a person. I think she’s an amazing actress. I didn’t take it personally that she said that. I think she wanted to be able to give her speech without being interrupted, and it just accidentally came back onto me.
But you know, Twitter had my back. I wasn’t reading Twitter during the performance. I knew what was going on because I saw the frantic situation on my team, but I didn’t read any of those tweets. I was handed my phone and they were like, if you want to say something, you can post. And I said yes, I want to post something. So I tweeted that I wasn’t playing the play off-music, and that was the only time I looked at my phone during the entire night. I didn’t look at it again until after it was done.
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, because I was surprised that you were able to tweet during the show. So what spurred that? How did you learn in real time that this was becoming a big topic on Twitter?
My boyfriend was there and he was sitting at the table very close to me. And I’m pretty aware, so when I heard the play-off music happening, and it was piano, and when the winners were kind of looking over in my direction and saying “stop the piano,” especially Colin, I heard that and I said to the team, “I think people are going to start to think that I’m playing and interrupting all these speeches live.”
So I asked my boyfriend to give me my phone just for that moment. He was like, “I think if you want to tweet something, now’s the chance, now’s your opportunity.” So I just tweeted it and then I left it alone. But I saw it coming. It was a little bit obvious to me when winner after winner was mentioning the piano.
And then a lot of them were looking to the same side of the stage when they mentioned the music. It was kind of hard to tell from watching it on TV where your setup was, but were they looking at you?
Yeah, they looked to my side. They could have chosen to look left, they could have chosen to look right, but the way that the room is, they’re in the middle of the room and they were looking towards me. So they were looking in a direction, and I was in that direction, so I could see that there could be some confusion about who’s playing or what’s playing.
And also, again, I’m the face of the sound for the night. So people are looking at me when they hear music, whether it’s me playing or not. Even though I’m a solo pianist, so obviously I don’t have a trumpet player and a saxophonist and a string orchestra with me, right? So when you hear all those other sounds, I assume that there is no confusion. But, you know, music is music, so I think that people just assumed that I was playing during those times, when I wasn’t.
But it was OK. Again, I love Michelle. I respect her so much, and I still do, and I don’t think that she was directing that towards me. I think it sounded that way in the moment to everyone, but I didn’t take it personally.
That seemed very obvious to me, too, which is why I was surprised to see some news outlets directly implying, “Michelle Yeoh wants to fight Chloe Flower!”
No! She was so nice to me after. We embraced, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, you’re amazing, you’re beautiful.” And it’s like she said in her speech—it’s important for Asian women, especially Asian women in Hollywood, to be supportive of each other. Because there aren’t that many of us, and we’re finally getting representation. Her winning that award last night was inspiring and empowering to me, even though I have no intention of being an actor; I’m a pianist. But other Asian girls will see her and see that win, and it was just amazing. It’s all good. It’s all good vibes today.
Yeah, that was an incredible speech she gave. At one point, Jerrod Carmichael shouted you out during the show and told the audience that you weren’t the one doing the play-off music, ostensibly to let everyone at home know that they were blowing things out of proportion. How did that feel? What was going through your mind when he said that?
I was so, so grateful to the producers and to Jerrod and the network. I have never seen anyone react to Twitter in real time on an awards show. Especially for someone like me, who’s just playing piano during the commercial re-entry. I thought it was so nice of him. He is such a nice, nice guy.
In fact, we spent five minutes backstage. I passed him in the hallway and he stopped me and he’s like, “I just want you to know this is not fair what’s happening on social media right now. We are so grateful to have you.” He just gave me the biggest pep talk. He hugged me. He’s like, “I’m so sorry for what’s happening. I’m gonna make this right. I’m gonna fix this.” And I really thought he was going to just tweet something. I didn’t realize that they were going to actually go on camera and say something during the show.
Someone posted an Instagram post of me on camera reacting to him, and I was laughing at myself, like, “Oh, I look so sad!” But I was there to inspire people with music, and so it was never the intention to upset people and to get people all feisty about the play-off music. When he did that, I was truly, genuinely so grateful. Not just to him, but to everyone who allowed him to do that. I don’t know what happened backstage to make that happen. But the fact that they did that, I think it really helped. I don’t know how many people saw my tweet, but I know millions of people heard him. And he set it straight.
It seems like maybe next year they should just have the play-off music be purely strings or something—no piano—just to cut down on any confusion.
Yeah! Unless they have a violinist. Then, maybe pick piano. But it was great. It was a fun event and I had a great time. I kept going, I didn’t let that distract me. I just wanted to finish the show and do my best. And a lot of people came up to me after and said they loved it, so you can’t control everything that happens on social media.
Was there anything else that happened inside the room that people didn’t get to see at home?
Well, we started to run out of time. I was supposed to be on camera a lot more at the end. I was supposed to play a few more times. I was supposed to play The Godfather. I did an arrangement of The Godfather and Cheers and some other arrangements that I didn’t get to play. So they didn’t get to see my last outfit. I was wearing this really pretty ruffle [dress] that I thought would have a moment, but they didn’t get to see that. And again, off camera, they didn’t get to see me hug Michelle Yeoh and talk to Austin Butler, so I think they missed the narrative a little bit.
If the Globes asked you back next year, would you do it?
I’d maybe do it in a different way, but I would love to.
How so?
I think if I came back… it’s fun to switch things up. I wouldn’t want to do the same performance style every year, so I wouldn’t want to necessarily do just me, solo piano, in every commercial intro. Liberace did this really cool thing at the Oscars where he came out of the stage in a crystal piano. I have the actual crystal piano in my apartment.
He comes out of the stage with the crystal piano and he plays a medley of best original scores with a live orchestra, and it’s a beautiful moment. I think that would be more of the kind of performance I would want to do. This was great, and I loved it, and it was so much fun. But I don’t want to do the same performance every year. Because I’m not, like, a Golden Globes pianist, you know? I’m myself, I’m Chloe. So yeah, maybe switch it up, do something different.
