Social media food critic Keith Lee took a beating for his response to Taraji P. Henson’s big signing at the 2024 BET Awards.

The Oscar-nominated actress hosted the annual awards show for the third time on Sunday, June 30, and she or he apparently shocked one influential audience member.

In a sketch in which Henson walked through the gathering and handed out roses to random celebrities sitting in the front orchestra, she by chance insulted certainly one of the strongest men in the city’s dining scene. She fooled the TikTok star Jordan Howlett from Lee.

During the live broadcast, Henson approached Howlett, whom she described as a “Method Man look-alike,” and asked, “Meth is married — are you?”

As the young man squirmed but played through the awkward filler part, things took an excellent stranger turn when the 53-year-old addressed Howlett as “Mr. Keith Lee.” She said: “I know what you’re thinking, is that about a 10.9 out of 10?”

The mix-up became obvious when Howlett pointed at Lee, who was sitting two seats away together with his wife Ronni. An embarrassed Henson apologised, saying: “I got caught up in my own internal monologue, I’m so sorry.” He then tried to diffuse the situation by calling Lee “fine too” in front of his wife.

Taraji P. Henson Embarrasses Keith Lee and Jordan Howlett #rewardsBETA photo: twitter.com/o7Mtt8Rn3L

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 1, 2024

Later in the evening, Lee shared a response to the matter on his TikTok page. The former MMA fighter filmed himself dropping a rose at his feet.

The caption for the post: “Our name will be known in every room, where it should be, when it should be, how it should be, without a doubt. God is amazing (praying hands emoji) #grateful.”

The clip was later deleted. The Neighborhood Talk took a screenshot of the video before deleting it and posting it so its 1.9 million followers could express their mixed opinions.

“Cliché,” one person said, “especially after she closed the show with a sincere apology.”

Some thought Lee posted this in a vulgar way: “Bleee…

Someone else said, “Sir, you write food reviews… stop being so dramatic.”

Others focused on how embarrassed he will need to have been by her flirtation: “He did the right thing! HAPPY WIFE, HAPPY LIFE!!! Y’all are nitpicking.”

“I think people forget that he may have been embarrassed too,” one person said in his defense. “It was on national TV and it was awkward as hell. She didn’t know who he was and she was flirting with him in front of his wife. Production needs to think about these things before they let the host do this because production told her to do it. His response TO ME is not directed at Taraji directly, but at whoever told her to do it.”

Rapper and reality star Lil Scrappy also chimed in with words for Lee. “It was an honest mistake, my boy,” he said in an Instagram post that was re-published via Hollywood Unlocked. “It happens to all of us, but seriously, your name is known as a food critic and that worked, but we need to be better at recognizing and respecting our people, it goes both ways.”

Quite a couple of fans got here to Taraji’s defense.

“If you only knew how live TV works… she probably had people in her ear giving her instructions at the same time… the camera crew was lining her up at the right moment… that’s not easy… slow down Ms. Taraji,” one person said in defense of the star.

Someone else said: “Taraji is a major league star who thought the other guy was you…calm down. Nobody came to see you, Otis.”

Henson remained silent on the matter until the evening of July 2.

In response to Lee dropping a rose in his film, she he said“Life is seriously too short for this kind of behavior. He wasn’t sitting in his seat. They assign seats to celebrities. I practiced all damn day to hit my target and this young man wasn’t sitting in his seat so he MISSED HIS MOMENT! His ego is bruised. He’ll be fine. I cleaned it up at the end of the show. No loser here.”

After criticism online, Lee returned to add context as to why he threw the rose in separate video on his TikTok page. He began by saying, “I’m not mad at Henson” for mistaking him for another person and paid her a compliment.

“In my opinion, she was smoking last night. I don’t think Taraji had any ill intentions or bad intentions behind the situation. The situation happened the way it happened. It is what it is.”

Lee noted that the reason he dropped the rose in the video had nothing to do with Taraji.

“I believe with all my heart. It wasn’t my rose. It wasn’t my moment. It was given to me, but it wasn’t mine,” he said. “As I always say, I don’t want anything that isn’t mine. I want what’s meant for me. Nothing less, nothing more.”

Lee then blamed the production for uprooting him and his wife from their original seats and putting them in the front row, giving Henson “no clues as to who we were or what we were doing; it seemed extremely unprepared and unprofessional to me.”

“The whole segment on the production side felt incredibly rushed,” he continued. “Not only did it feel rushed, it didn’t feel intentional. It didn’t feel intentional.”

He later added: “It was unfair to both of us.”

The TikTok star also addressed criticism over a screenshot of his wife’s face, which showed her with a contorted face, leading many to assume she was “holding a grudge against Taraji” for flirting together with her husband in front of her.

“My wife and I understand that Taraji’s flirtation was completely improvised and completely in jest,” he explained. “It was a difficult situation for all of us, and we fully understand that she made it up on the fly.”

Lee concluded his video by reiterating that he appreciated BET’s invitation but wished “we both had more success in that situation.”