Kelly Rowland stole many red carpet headlines from this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with a visible confrontation with a female security officer as she made her way up the famous steps and into the Palais.
Deadline previously reported Rowland giving her side of the bust-up. Saying she felt the French security rushed her time on the red carpet at Cannes, leading to the widely circulated confrontation.
Now, the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper reports that colleagues of the usher have defended her, saying she was “only doing her job.”
The paper quotes a colleague of the woman, who has not been named, saying:
“She was an usher working under a lot of pressure to keep people on the carpet moving, so as to stop crowds building up. There was no pushing or shoving, or scolding. Security and safety are the priorities, along with keeping to strict timetables set according to contracts – even the celebrities have to stick to the rules.
“Lots of ushers are involved, and they always act professionally and with politeness.
“In this case, the usher was certainly only doing her job – she didn’t do anything wrong.”
The incident happened Tuesday as Rowland walked into the premiere of the French film Marcello Mio. There were words exchanged and Rowland raised her finger to emphasize her point.
“The woman knows what happened, I know what happened,” Rowland told the AP at the amfAR Cannes Gala on Thursday. “I have a boundary and I stand by those boundaries, and that is it. And there were other women that attended that carpet who did not quite look like me, and they didn’t get that scolding, 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.”
The same source told the Daily Mail: “Suggestions of racism are just ridiculous – visitors, and indeed staff at Cannes come from all kinds of backgrounds, and none are discriminated against.”
Another Cannes staffer who had studied the video of Tuesday’s incident told The Mail Ms Rowland may have “mistakenly thought the usher stepped on her dress.”
