Laverne Cox on Grammy Metallica Mishap: ‘It Was on the Teleprompter and I Was in a Moment’

Nicole Sands
Updated

Laverne Cox is not letting the hate over her Grammy stage mistake get her down.

The actress-activist stopped by Sway in the Morning Tuesday to chat with host Sway Calloway on Eminem’s SiriusXM channel Shade 45, where she cleared up her Metallica mishap and swooned over her Grammy run-in with Beyoncé.

On Sunday night during the 2017 Grammy Awards, Cox took the stage to introduce Lady Gaga and Metallica’s blistering performance of “Moth Into Flame,” but she was so “in a moment” that she failed announce the heavy metal group’s name.

“I know Metallica, so this is the thing—people think that I do not know Metallica,” she explains. “It was on the teleprompter and I was in a moment, and I just thought I said them until afterwards.”

“It was just a mistake,” she continues. “I love Metallica, I love metal, and I got into heavy metal actually because a lot of the boys I was interested in back in the day were into metal. It was not me dissing them at all. I love Metallica—I’m so sorry. I apologized to them on Twitter and to all the fans. It was just a mistake. I’m human.”

The Doubt star quickly took to social media Sunday night after the incident to apologize to the group and all their fans.

“I am so sorry to ‪#Metallica and all their fans,” she posted on her Twitter page. “I am told I didn’t say their names during the intro. Love you Metallica. You Rock. ‪#Grammys”

But a little dose of Bey takes all the pain away. “I got to meet her and it was everything,” she tells Calloway.

In fact, Cox almost got to work with the Queen Bey herself.

“Actually, Miss Tina contacted me about their initial concept of ‘Sorry’ from Lemonade,” Cox reveals. “They wanted to have all these powerful, empowered black women in the video and they wanted to have me and Viola and Kerry .”

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Unfortunately, the project came during a time when Cox was tied up filming her television film, but the celebrity athlete who landed the role was indeed “perfect.”

“I was shooting Rocky Horror Picture Show at the time and they were like, ‘Can you get the EP to shoot something and send it to us?’ and there was just no time to do it,” she says. “The concept changed. And could you imagine anyone else? I mean, there was Serena Williams like giving us full life.”