Selfie-snapping fans ‘piss off’ Miranda Lambert: ‘Grinch of country music’

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Taking a selfie at a Miranda Lambert show could land you in trouble with the country music star.

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During a recent performance of her Velvet Rodeo residency in Las Vegas, the songstress lashed out a a group of fans taking snapping pics during her show.

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“These girls are worried about their selfies and not listening to the song, and it’s pissing me off a little bit,” Lambert said, interrupting her rendition of 2016’s Tin Man. “I don’t like it, at all. We’re here to hear some country music tonight.”

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Lambert then gestured at the fans to sit down, before continuing with the song, saying, “Shall we start again?”

But the Grammy winner’s response divided fans online, with some calling out the singer’s harsh reaction.

In a TikTok video that generated over 19,000 comments, several audience members were seen leaving their seats, with one saying, “Let’s go — you don’t do that to fans.”

“Yeah, I would have left, f*** that. They paid to be there. If you don’t want pictures, then don’t allow phones. That’s ridiculous,” one fan snapped.

“She could have finished her song and just said some blanket statement like, ‘Let’s try to be in the moment and stay off our phones’ if she felt like she needed to,” one person added in a comment on the TikTok video.

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“I actually think this is super weird. I’m a huge music fan and I also love Miranda Lambert but those girls could’ve saved up months to see an artist they love and wanted to commemorate their time there. Now this will be their memory,” another detractor wrote on Twitter. “It feels like we should let people enjoy these moments however they want unless they are bothering others, being harmful, or disruptive.”

One observer weighed in, noting that Lambert has a history of awkward fan interactions.

“Miranda Lambert also once popped a fan’s beach ball when she got annoyed that the crowd was having fun with it. She’s like the Grinch of country music.”

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But several people defended Lambert’s coarse reaction, with one writing: “To put the Miranda Lambert thing into perspective… imagine if Taylor [Swift] played a super up close and personal show and right as she launched into All Too Well, the drunk locals in the VIP seats in front of you, asked you to take photos of them with their backs to Taylor…”

One of the women who posed for the photos that caused Lambert’s viral blow-up, spoke out about the incident in an interview with NBC News.

“It was 30 seconds at most,” Calin, a social media influencer from Las Vegas, said. “We took the picture quickly and were going to sit back down.”

Calin added that the exchange made her feel humiliated.

“It felt like I was back at school with the teacher scolding me for doing something wrong and telling me to sit down back in my place,” she said. “I feel like she was determined to make us look like we were young, immature and vain. But we were just grown women in our 30s to 60s trying to take a picture.”

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When one commentator asked if she walked out after getting dressed down, Calin replied, “2 of my friends did.”

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Twitter: @markhdaniell

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