Emeli Sandé clears up why she mimed during her Concert for Ukraine performance

30 March 2022, 17:57

Emeli Sandé has apologised to her fans after she lip-synced during her Concert For Ukraine performance last night (March 29).

The 'Clown' singer was one of the artists who performed at the one-off two-hour event, held at the Resorts World Arena, Birmingham.

However, she appeared to be the only artist to mime along with her track, 'Brighter Days', while appearing on stage alongside the Kingdom Choir.

• Concert for Ukraine highlights: Ed Sheeran, Nile Rodgers, Paloma Faith and more perform

After some fans spoke of their disappointment over watching a singer of Emeli's talent miming, she posted a video on Twitter confirming why this was the case.

“Hey everybody, I really hope you enjoyed the Concert For Ukraine,” she said with an obviously hoarse voice.

“It raised so much money and it was such an important thing for me to be a part of.

"I really wanted to sing, but I woke up the day of the concert and my voice was like this, which is really annoying because the day before I was singing Mariah [Carey] totally fine.”

She added: “I had to make a very difficult decision: do I pull out of the concert, which I really didn’t want to do, or do I lip-sync to the track? And I chose to lip-sync.

“I’ve never done it in my career ever before, and I never ever will do it again. But for me, it was more important that I got to perform the song with the amazing Kingdom Choir, and that the message of the song came through.”

Emeli concluded: “I apologise to everyone who noticed that it was a lip-sync. I promise that it will never happen again, but I hope that the message of the song still came through.”

Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sandé and Nile Rodgers + Chic were among the big-name artists performing last night.

Hosted by Roman Kemp, Emma Bunton and Marvin Humes, it was broadcast on ITV, alongside special backstage coverage on Smooth's sister stations Heart and Capital.

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