A topless protestor went and made things a little bit complicated for Avril Lavigne at the JUNO Awards.
The motherfucking princess had a big night at the annual awards ceremony in Edmonton yesterday (March 13), where she took home the TikTok Fan Choice Award for the fourth time. Lavigne also introduced the debut performance from Indo-Canadian musician AP Dhillon earlier in the evening, and was interrupted when a topless protestor crashed the stage.
Wearing fuchsia sweatpants and pasties, "STOP OLD LOGGING GROWTH NOW" and "SAVE THE GREEN BELT" were written on the unidentified stage crasher's back in black marker, responding to rampant socio-environmental issues in British Columbia and Ontario, respectively.
Lavigne got most of the way through her introduction to Dhillon's performance, then directly addressed the protestor. But first, she rather humorously flicked the streaker's exposed breast, which drew praise from previous tourmates the Beaches on Twitter.
The motherfucking princess had a big night at the annual awards ceremony in Edmonton yesterday (March 13), where she took home the TikTok Fan Choice Award for the fourth time. Lavigne also introduced the debut performance from Indo-Canadian musician AP Dhillon earlier in the evening, and was interrupted when a topless protestor crashed the stage.
Wearing fuchsia sweatpants and pasties, "STOP OLD LOGGING GROWTH NOW" and "SAVE THE GREEN BELT" were written on the unidentified stage crasher's back in black marker, responding to rampant socio-environmental issues in British Columbia and Ontario, respectively.
Lavigne got most of the way through her introduction to Dhillon's performance, then directly addressed the protestor. But first, she rather humorously flicked the streaker's exposed breast, which drew praise from previous tourmates the Beaches on Twitter.
"Get the fuck off, bitch," the singer-songwriter told the stage crasher while security attempted to remove them.
On a serious note, a protestor crashing the biggest night in Canadian music to draw attention to crucial issues is an accurate reflection of this current moment of social upheaval, climate change and everything else — issues that are obviously far greater than any awards show inconvenience. Godspeed, pink sweatpants!
Lavigne addressed the incident again later in the night while accepting her Fan Choice Award. "Now, nobody try anything this time," she remarked during her speech. "Or the Canadian will come out of me, and I'll fuck a bitch up."
Host Simu Liu — who performed a medley of her hits earlier in the night — applauded her for "handling that topless lady like a champion." Although the Weeknd took home the award for Album of the Year and Nickelback were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, it's safe to say that Lavigne and the protestor stole the show.
Watch both the clip of the incident and the singer-songwriter's acceptance speech below.
Neil Young recently performed at an old growth forest protest in Victoria, while the government has been lobbying to lift protections from the Southern Ontarian green space — which has lost 450,000 acres of farmland since 1991— for residential and industrial development.
