Kelly Rowland Addresses Cannes Red Carpet Confrontation with Security

Kelly Rowland was seen getting into a heated exchange with security on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet.

By Anna Rumer

Kelly Rowland is addressing the headline-making interaction she had with security on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet on Tuesday. The Destiny's Child alum's heated exchange with a security guard went viral as fans tried to figure out what happened on the red carpet of the Marcello Mio premiere to spark it. Thursday, the 43-year-old singer and actress explained the incident to the Associated Press at the amfAR Cannes Gala. 

"The woman knows what happened. I know what happened," Rowland told the outlet. "I have a boundary, and I stand by those boundaries, and that is it." She continued, "And there were other women that attended that carpet who did not quite look like me, and they didn't get scolded or pushed off or told to get off. I stood my ground, and she felt like she had to stand hers, but I stood my ground."

Rowland's interaction with the security guard started off normally, but the mood shifted suddenly after the staffer seemingly said something to the "Dilemma" singer while ushering her along the red carpet. "Don't talk to me like that. Don't talk to me like that," the singer is believed to have repeated, according to Page Six's "expert witness and forensic lip reader" Jeremy Freeman. "You're not my mother. I told you not to talk to me like that."

Rowland recently has been making a different kind of splash in the acting world, starring in Tyler Perry's Mea Culpa, which was released on Netflix in February. The Merry Liddle Christmas Baby actress opened up to PopCulture.com in May 2023 about taking on the erotic legal thriller as a new challenge, admitting, "It's a role that I was very nervous about stepping into. ...It's a side of me that I've never shown before." 

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Rowland said she "learned a lot" from working with Perry, who was a "dream" collaborator. "Yes, he is an icon, but just both feet on the ground in such a humble way, in a gracious way, and very much so seeing things before it happens," she gushed. "He's kind of a magical person. He's literally so magical and I just love him. He is so brilliant, so brilliant in every way."

Moving forward, Rowland said she would love to take on the role of Donna Summers in a biopic. "I thought that [the documentary Love to Love You, Donna Summer] was done so beautifully, but I also still felt like there's even more to her story and that is the dream role, for sure," she said. "We're going to put it out there."

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