Selena Gomez Appears to Cringe at Chris Brown’s VMAs Nomination

Selena Gomez went viral for her very candid facial expressions during the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards Tuesday (Sept. 12).

Notably, the pop star appeared to visibly cringe and stop clapping when controversial artist Chris Brown‘s name was announced as a nominee in the Best R&B category.

When the next nominees, Yung Bleu and Nicki Minaj, were announced, Gomez smiled and clapped along to the audience’s cheering.

“She’s so real,” one fan tweeted of Gomez’s apparent reaction, echoing the same sentiment that many fans expressed online.

See the moment below:

Earlier in the evening, Gomez also went viral for her reaction to Olivia Rodrigo‘s performance of her Guts songs “vampire” and “get him back.”

READ MORE: See the Full List of 2023 MTV VMAs Winners

Gomez appeared startled as Rodrigo’s stage erupted with fireworks and seemingly broke down. Thankfully, it was all part of the performance in the end.

Later in the night, Gomez nabbed the first-ever VMA for Best Afrobeats. The win marks Gomez’s second win at the VMAs, as she won the award for Best Pop Video 10 years ago for her song “Come & Get It.”

Gomez and Rema won the award for their remix of “Calm Down,” originally off the Nigerian singer’s 2022 debut studio album, Rave & Roses.

“It’s such an incredible song that’s been able to break records. Thank you to all of you for listening, for streaming. I could not be more honored, and I wanna send all my love to Nigeria, thank you!” Gomez said in her VMAs acceptance speech.

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Gomez hopped on a remix of the song in August 2022. The song topped several international charts and landed at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Currently, the song has over 1 billion Spotify streams.

“It’s a blessing. It’s not just a big win for me, my team and family, it’s also a big one for the culture. I feel really happy and I’m really proud of the fans as well for going back to the song and putting people on the song. Shout out to the DJs and everyone who made this possible,” Rema said after the song hit 1 billion streams, per Billboard.