Teyana Taylor walked off stage at the 2026 Billboard Women in Music Awards due to technical issues with her teleprompter.
Awkward moments ensued Wednesday when the “One Battle After Another” actress took to the stage at the Hollywood Palladium to give her Visionary Award acceptance speech.
“Can I take the teleprompt?” Taylor, 35, asked, waiting in awkward silence.
A member of the audience tried to break the ice by shouting, “I love you Teyana,” but Taylor responded, “I love you too, girl!”
Someone else suggested that Taylor “ad-lib” his speech, but Taylor quickly cut it off.
“Improvisation? My speech is cute. They’re going to pull this damn speech up. Where’s my speech?” she said.
The Oscar nominee continued, “You know I’m going to give a good speech this year. I want to read my little speech. It’s not ad-libbed.”
Taylor also claimed that his microphone “already messed up” during a performance earlier in the night due to the show.
The teleprompter finally displayed a message for Taylor.
“Oh, Teyana Taylor says she doesn’t have a script. Everyone, exit stage right,” she told the crowd as she exited the stage.
Host KiKi Palmer walked out and joked about the accident, pointing out that she “ruined my daughter Teyana’s teleprompter.”
Later in the show, Taylor reappeared with Dionne Warwick, who was presenting the award, and got a second chance to speak.
“Thank you to the legendary Miss Dionne Warwick for joining me in this moment,” said Taylor, who changed into a gray sweatsuit and looked more casual than before.
“Thank you Billboard for this incredible honor,” she added with a playful smacking of her lips and a laugh.
The Golden Globe winner thanked God and explained that there were “a lot of moments that I didn’t quite understand, even moments like this one,” which caused the actress and the audience to laugh again.
Taylor mentioned the teleprompter incident again later in his speech, tearfully thanking his mother Nikki Taylor and joking, “It was so stupid to see you cuss them out there.”
Taylor continued, “But what I want to say is, I want to thank Billboard for their accountability. I want to thank Billboard for their warm response. I want to thank Billboard for coming right into the room and acknowledging what was done.”
“So thank you so much, Billboard,” Taylor said, adding that her mother “taught me how to give grace.”
Billboard released a statement about the technical mishap, calling it an “unpleasant error.”
“We apologize to Teyana Taylor for the unpleasant mistake and thank her for graciously agreeing to return to the stage with her incredible speech as this year’s Visionary Award recipient,” the statement said.
Taylor previously made headlines for getting into a fight with a security guard at the 2026 Oscars ceremony in March.
The incident erupted when security attempted to stop Taylor and a Warner Bros. Pictures executive from returning to the stage to take a group photo with the cast and crew of One Battle After Another after winning Best Picture.
The security company apologized for the incident, but Taylor released a statement saying “we do not tolerate disrespect.”
