The Billboard Music Awards don’t have the following of the Grammys or even the American Music Awards, but as Sunday night’s show demonstrated, they certainly hold their own in terms of drama. The actual performances were easily upstaged by a seemingly well-lubricated Kid Rock complaining about lip-syncing (an obvious dig at Selena Gomez’s enthusiastically danced but suspiciously perfect rendition of “Come and Get It”); Ms. Gomez giving her on-and-off boyfriend Justin Bieber the evil eye as he collected one of his two awards, then gleefully embracing her BFF Taylor Swift when Ms. Swift beat him out for Top Artist, and then Mr. Bieber apparently near tears when he approached the stage to accept the fan-voted Milestone Award as a good portion of the room loudly booed him. The last even prompted a bewildered Tweet from a famous ex-football player.
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Music Awards Worthy of a Tony
Justin Bieber accepts the milestone award at the Billboard Music Awards show. More Photos »
By STUART EMMRICH
Published: May 21, 2013
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Delia Enriquez @dfiregirl4
Kid Rock: “Lets give it up for people lip-synching to pre-recorded music!” And the award for best quote goes to Kid Rock! #BBMAs
GavinDeGraw @GavinDeGraw
Thank you @KidRock for speaking the TRUTH. Preach!
Del Rey. @TeAmoBrit
How is it possible that Selena Gomez is lip syncing and still sounds horrible....
bevysmith @bevysmith
OMG, Beiber is singing over his track, he’s like Kid Rock won’t read me! Yet another reason for me to love Beiber!
mary lauren @LaurenReddeck
I see you T. Swift staring at Selena while Justin is up there. BE CASUAL GIRL THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE BOY ISSUES.
Stephanie Scrafano @stephscrafano
I’m not the biggest Taylor swift fan but I can appreciate anyone that throws some shade at Justin Bieber
Andrea Russett @AndreaRussett
Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran are sitting next to each other.... RUN ED BABY RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN
4/5/2013. @l3ieberKingdom
Taylor and Selena didn’t even stand up like everyone else when Justin won his award.
July 7th @BieberPriority
Booing Justin isn’t going to stop him from selling millions of records, playing at world famous stadiums, and producing Grammy worth music.
DeionSanders @DeionSanders
Someone please educate this old timer why are they booing Justin Bieber? I thought he was the next Elvis!
August 24th @FearlessWithSel
When Selena got backstage and she saw Justin, she immediately smiled and tried to cheer him up. How can you say she’s a bad girlfriend?
Justin Bieber @justinbieber
2 performances and 2 awards. Grateful to my #Beliebers . Our awards. Love u