TikTok star and musician Alex Warren recently opened up about a "horrifying" technical malfunction that significantly marred his live performance of the Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper "Ordinary" at this year's Grammys. Warren, who was among several Best New Artist nominees participating in a live medley during the ceremony on February 1, delved into the incident for the first time in an exclusive clip shared with Billboard on Tuesday (March 10), taken from his forthcoming interview on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast with host Alex Cooper.

During rehearsals leading up to the main event, Warren stated that everything had been executed flawlessly, instilling confidence for the live show. However, just moments before he was scheduled to perform between fellow nominees Leon Thomas and Lola Young, the audio feed to his in-ear monitors completely cut out. He frantically informed the crew, saying, "I can't hear anything, I can't hear myself," as the countdown for his live television segment relentlessly continued. Despite his urgent pleas and with only 25 seconds left before airtime, the technical problem remained unresolved, and the crew was unable to rectify the issue before he had to step out onto the stage at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

Confronted with an impossible situation, Warren recalled a moment of acceptance, looking skyward and thinking, "This is meant to happen," before resolving to push through the performance. The cameras captured his entrance, which began at a popcorn stand in the venue’s concession area, before he made his way to greet the audience and finally took the stage. During his segment, he was visibly and audibly seen struggling to find his timing and pitch against the accompaniment due to the complete lack of in-ear monitoring. He ultimately managed to regain control and continue the performance by quickly removing his earpiece.

The Best New Artist medley featured other talented nominees, including KATSEYE, Olivia Dean, Addison Rae, sombr, and The Marías, with Olivia Dean ultimately being awarded the prize. Following the Grammys ceremony, Warren had already publicly acknowledged the technical difficulties by posting a video on Instagram. This video showed him listening to the distorted and delayed audio track that had been erroneously fed into his in-ears. He captioned the post with a poignant comment, "When you’re performing at the Grammys and all you hear is this in your ears," and added, "This would only happen to me," underscoring the unexpected and challenging experience he endured on one of music's most significant nights.