Key points
Ejae performed “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters at the BAFTAs — and got a bit starstruck
The singer said that locking eyes with Leonardo DiCaprio led to “mistakes” in her performance because she was “so nervous.”
“He was not smiling,” she recalled
Ejae dreamed hard and came so far to perform at the BAFTAs — and now she says a major movie star inadvertently prompted some flaws in her performance
The singer, who provided the singing voice of protagonist Rumi in KPop Demon Hunters, reflected on her time at the February awards show in a new interview with The Times, and said that Leonardo DiCaprio threw off her rendition of “Golden” during the ceremony
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“The BAFTAs haunt me,” Ejae said. “I made mistakes. I cracked a little bit on the high notes. Leonardo DiCaprio was [in the audience] right in front of me, and he was not smiling.”
The singer, who eventually won an Oscar for co-writing “Golden,” said she looked directly at the Titanic actor right as she sang the words “born to be,” which marks one of the highest notes in the entire song.
“That’s what put me off,” she said. “He made me so nervous. It was already so nerve-racking to be in front of all these celebrities, and then I look up and lock eyes with Leonardo DiCaprio? Come on.”
Ejae said she felt less nervous when she performed at the Brit Awards the following week. “Because it was performing to fans, kids being like ‘Rumi, you got this!'” she said. “I never knew that sentence would be so heartwarming and helpful.”
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Elsewhere in the interview, Ejae said she crossed paths with one of the music industry’s biggest power couples. “I was at their afterparty and Jay-Z came up to me and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Shawn,'” she remembered. “I was beyond starstruck. Beyoncé is my idol and she said, ‘You have an incredible voice.'”
Ejae said she was stunned to learn that Beyoncé knew of her work. “I asked her, ‘Do you know “Golden”?’ She was like, ‘Yeah, my girls sing it,'” she said. “And her daughter’s name is Rumi.”
The singer said she was recently struck by the significance of her position as a role model for young fans on the international stage
“I was at a fan signing event, and there was this Korean mum and daughter,” Ejae said. “The mum said that her daughter’s favourite singer used to be — I’m not going to say who, but it was a non-Asian person — a huge pop singer. She said, ‘Because of KPop Demon Hunters, now her idol is you. She gets to have someone who looks like her as her role model.'”
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She continued, “That’s when I realised the position I was in. These girls are looking up to me. I’m like a doorway for a different future. Growing up I never saw many Asian singers in the West. I’m seeing it more now that K-pop is finally getting bigger, but to have someone say that to me, it woke me up.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
