Lip-syncing has become a reality in today's music industry, especially when stars are putting on high-profile shows millions of people will be watching live. Even Beyoncé, arguably the most talented vocalist of her generation, has relied on a prerecorded track. In 2013, her performance at President Barack Obama's second inauguration was a topic on everyone's lips, and not for the right reasons. Most recently, Iggy Azalea faced a fair share of speculation about her confusing performance with Jennifer Lopez [1]. Beyoncé and Iggy aren't alone. Scroll through to relive the often cringeworthy moments, and then check out the biggest stage mishaps caught on tape [2].
Source: Getty / Stan Honda [3]; Front Page
Ashlee Simpson (2004)
Ashlee infamously performed a jig-like dance move and walked off the Saturday Night Live [4] stage after an audio problem suggested she was set to lip-sync. We later learned Ashlee's acid reflux problems and concerns about her vocal chords influenced her team's decision to use a backing track [5].
Britney Spears (2007)
Lip-syncing chatter has long been part of Britney's career narrative, but her performance of "Gimme More" at the MTV VMAs was the most questionable instance. Britney's lips weren't always in sync with her vocals, which sounded exactly like the studio version of her song.
Milli Vanilli (1989)
In what is widely considered the most career-damaging lip-sync fail, duo Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus ran off stage after their song "Girl You Know It's True" started to skip. As the story goes, Fab and Rob weren't even lip-syncing to their own vocals; other vocalists were responsible for the hit.
Whitney Houston (1991)
The late superstar prerecorded her vocals for "The Star-Spangled Banner" days before she stole the spotlight at the Super Bowl. Although she reportedly sang live to the track, organizers didn't want to risk a problem [6] with the acoustics.
Iggy Azalea (2014)
Iggy joined Jennifer Lopez [7] on stage at the B96 Summer Bash concert to perform "Actin' Like That." Iggy's lips didn't move [8] when her voice came over the speakers, so it was clear the performance was not the real deal. The rapper later took to Twitter [9] to clarify talk about the incident: "i didn't forget to lip-sync you nutters my mic was literally OFF i picked up the wrong one as i walked out, carried on & had fun."
Beyoncé (2013)
No one has confronted lip-syncing rumors quite like Beyoncé. (What would you expect from the queen?) After grabbing headlines for not singing the national anthem live [10] at President Barack Obama's second inauguration, Bey used a Super Bowl press conference [11] as an opportunity to prove she had the pipes and talent to sing the challenging song without accompaniment.
Bey also came clean about her reasons for using a track. "I practice until my feet bleed, and I did not have time to rehearse with the orchestra," she said. "Due to no proper sound check, I did not feel comfortable taking a risk. It was about the president and the inauguration, and I wanted to make him and my country proud, so I decided to sing along with my prerecorded track, which is very common in the music industry. And I'm very proud of my performance."