A lip-syncing scandal hit the October 23, 2004 episode of Saturday Night Live when pop singer Ashlee Simpson was caught utilizing backing vocal tracks as an alternative of singing dwell.

The Saturday Night Live workers, together with longtime producer Lorne Michaels, later stated they had been by no means advised of Simpson’s plan to make use of backing tracks. She additionally grew to become the primary visitor to stroll off the present whereas it was dwell on the air.

Simpson later defined that she had misplaced her voice previous to the present on account of a battle with extreme acid reflux disease, and had been pressured by her document label to lip-sync whereas beforehand recorded tapes of her singing had been performed alongside together with her band’s dwell devices.

The plan labored wonderful through the first tune Simpson carried out, “Pieces of Me.” But as you may see within the video under, when she returned to carry out a second tune entitled “Autobiography,” her drummer reportedly pressed the fallacious button, inflicting the vocals for “Pieces of Me” to play once more.

Watch Ashlee Simpson’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ Lip-Sync Malfunction

Simpson was caught completely off guard, with the microphone nowhere close to her face. As her band gamely tried to maintain issues rolling, she appeared round in confusion, briefly danced a jig, then dejectedly walked off stage. Her now-abandoned musicians continued to play for an additional 30 seconds earlier than the published mercifully minimize to business.

During the normal finish of present group farewell section, host Jude Law addressed the malfunction. “Ladies and gentleman, what can I say… live TV!” “Exactly, I feel so bad,” a clearly embarrassed Simpson defined. “My band starting playing the wrong song. And I didn’t know what to do so I thought I’d do a hoedown. I’m sorry!”

Watch Ashlee Simpson’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ Apology

By sheer luck, the revered CBS information program 60 Minutes was documenting the filming of this specific SNL episode for a characteristic that ran later that month. Their cameras captured Simpson’s difficulties throughout rehearsals, the workers’s shock on the on-air malfunction, and a tearful Simpson speeding off the set.

Watch the ’60 Minutes’ Report on Ashlee Simpson’s ‘SNL’ Mishap

When interviewed for the section, Michaels stated he was “absolutely not” advised of the lip-syncing plan, however did concede that some artists had beforehand employed backing tracks when showing on the present: “I think the only time is during dance breaks, where if it was all about dance… and that’s a relatively recent development.”

He additionally declared that he wasn’t too frightened concerning the damaging suggestions the incident garnered – which, granted was principally geared toward Simpson, not the present. “I don’t have any big welts or bruises. Life goes on, the great part about Saturday Night Live is there’s always next week.”

During a 2015 look on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Simpson declared that she was “completely” chargeable for what went fallacious. “I should’ve said ‘No, I will not go on. I will not do this.’”

Looking again on the incident in 2024 on Broad Ideas With Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen, the singer added that she knew instantly that she ought to have resisted the strain from a label govt to make use of the tapes: “My band’s never practiced this, this is not going to go well.”

Overall, Simpson stated the expertise taught her an vital lesson. “It was a humbling moment for me. I had the No. 1 song. It was like, everything was about to go somewhere and then it was just, like, ‘Whoa!’ The humility of not even understanding what grown-ass people would say about you. Awful, awful things. I had to learn to tune that out.”

Simpson was invited again to Saturday Night Live as a musical visitor the next yr, showing with out incident on the Oct. 8, 2005 episode.