Alex Warren Opens Up About ‘Horrifying’ Tech Malfunction During His 2026 Grammys Performance: ‘It Was Really Bad’
Alex Warren Opens Up About ‘Horrifying’ Tech Malfunction During His 2026 Grammys Performance: ‘It Was Really Bad’
Jack IrvinWed, March 11, 2026 at 4:56 PM UTC
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Alex Warren on 'Call Her Daddy'; Alex Warren at the 2026 Grammy AwardsCredit: Call Her Daddy; Stewart Cook/CBS via Getty -
Alex Warren appeared on the latest episode of Call Her Daddy
The "Ordinary" singer opened up about experiencing technical issues during his 2026 Grammys performance
"I'm supposed to be like, 'Hey guys, I'm at the Grammy's. This is cool,' and instead you will see pure horror in my eyes," he said
Alex Warren is opening up about his 2026 Grammys performance.
The "Fever Dream" singer, 25, appeared on the Wednesday, March 11 episode of Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast and opened up about experiencing a "horrifying" technological malfunction during his performance at the 2026 Grammy Awards last month.
Warren performed his hit song "Ordinary" at the ceremony and appeared to have some trouble with his in-ear device while walking through the crowd to the stage. He fell about half a beat behind at one point at one point but recovered fairly quickly.
"I've never talked about this. It was horrifying. We rehearsed it all week," he told Cooper, noting that everything went "perfect" while practicing. "And to this day, I don't know exactly what happened."
Warren explained that very shortly before his turn in the Best New Artist performance medley, "something happened and everything cut out" in his in-ear devices.
"They're like, '30 seconds,' and I said, “I can't hear anything. I can't hear myself,” and the guy's like, 'It's live TV, 25 seconds,' and I go, 'Guys, something's wrong.' Something gets blasted into left ear, and right ear I hear nothing, and I go, 'Guys, I can't hear,'" he detailed.
The technical difficulties persisted, which Warren accepted were "meant to happen." Crew members tried fixing the issue by changing the volume, but it didn't work.
"I start singing, and all I'm hearing is what's from the other room — like, a crowd mic is on or something," said Warren. "Once I start getting into the hallway, there's this hallway in the performance, I get the left ear blasting again, and so it's just the left ear."
He told Cooper the audio in his ears was mono rather than stereo and therefore difficult to hear. "There's no mix to it, so all I'm hearing is my voice super loud," he said. "I get down to the steps, and then immediately I start hearing echoing on the right ear, so I take it out, and then that made it worse — stupidly."
Once Warren reached the stage, his in-ear devices started working correctly again. "When we rehearsed it, they weren't expecting 20,000 phones to be in, and everyone was filming, and so the RF cut it out, and then once I got to the stage, 'cause there's two fins, I would assume, once we got to the stage, I got it back," he said.
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Alex Cooper and Alex WarrenCredit: Call Her Daddy
Cooper asked if Warren ever wanted to stop the performance altogether, but the ceremony was airing live on TV, so that wasn't an option. "I'm supposed to be like, 'Hey guys, I'm at the Grammy's. This is cool,' and instead you will see pure horror in my eyes," he said.
"I just wanted to get over it, and once I got over it, and once we were at the top — come on. I'm terrified of heights," continued Warren. "I'm horrified of heights, and that entire time I wasn't thinking about, 'I was in the air.' I was thinking, 'Please get me back on time.'"
The former Hype House member noted that he agreed get lifted into the air for the performance thinking it'd be "special." He added, "Now I'm realizing it was a bit megachurch."
As the performance ended, Warren held himself together to avoid crying on live TV. "I was holding back tears 'cause I looked to my left and right and everyone's like, 'You did so good,' and everyone's screaming," he recalled. "I was like, 'Wow, this is really, really emotional.'"
Warren had little time to change his outfit by the time the award for Best New Artist was presented. He was nominated in the category, though Olivia Dean ultimately took home the award.
Alex WarrenCredit: Call Her Daddy
He asked about the possibility of going home early from the awards show, but people encouraged him to stay. "I rush down. I'm wiping my eyes," he said, noting that he felt "destroyed" in the moments leading up to when Dean won the award. "I mean, I was really happy for her. She deserved it a hundred percent, but once that happened, I was like, 'Damn, I wanna go home.'"
"The whole entire Grammys, my head was on my wife's shoulder the entire time. I did not wanna look up. I did not wanna talk to anybody," said Warren, who later added: "It was really bad."
At one point, Chappell Roan came over and offered support. "She was like, 'Dude, if anyone understands, it’s the people in this room, and you sounded amazing.' I totally, we’ll get into it. I was down, and I think she could tell, and she came up to my table and was the sweetest ever," recalled Warren. "And I was like, 'I love you.'"
Later that night, Warren “deleted” social media apps from his phone to avoid online conversation about the snafu. He did, however, post a TikTok video about the tech malfunction and receive support from fans.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
