Probably every poor reader and/or contact wearer in the audience of Sunday night’s Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas felt vindicated when TV reality star and aspiring model Kendall Jenner fumbled her teleprompter introduction of Australia’s boy band, “5 Seconds of Summer.” She said, “And now we welcome, One…” before stopping abruptly. Everyone, including 5SOS’s British rival “One Direction,” assumed that she had started to name them instead!
Realizing her gaffe, Ms. Jenner laughed it off, but then made the media mistake of self-consciously volunteering T.M.I. by saying, “You guys, I’m a terrible reader,” which didn’t help. It would have been better to just smile, laugh and correctly introduce “5 Seconds of Summer,” rather than trying to explain it all away.
By trying to justify her error, Ms. Jenner dug herself into a deeper hole and subsequently opened herself up to more public scrutiny and social media mockery.