T-Pain Talks About the Time He Spilled Hennessy on Beyoncé’s White Dress

Florida artist T-Pain talked about his awkward encounter with Beyoncé at a Grammy afterparty in which he spilled Hennessy on her long white dress.

“She hit my elbow, and it [spilled] on her long ass white dress,” he said. “I did not do good that day.”

Apparently, he had bumped into the singer and her husband Jay-Z at the party, and at first thought, it would be the perfect chance to make amends with Jay-Z, who had released the track “Death of Auto-Tune.” It was a track T-Pain took as a diss since he considers himself the face of auto-tune music.

But he found himself in an embarrassing situation after spilling the drink on her.

The Tallahassee native discussed the incident during the latest episode of “Drink Champs.” He sat down with N.O.R.E and DJ EFN to talk about his experience in the music industry, his collection of music, and his unique sound.

T-Pain’s signature use of auto-tune pushed his career in the early 2000s. He was featured on many tracks and inspired many artists, but as time went on, his unique sound turned on him after the industry started to criticize his use of “pitch-correcting software” in his music.

The wave of criticism sent him into a depression, and he admits he struggled with thoughts of suicide.

Among those were Jay-Z and Usher. In June, on a clip from Netflix’s “This Is Pop,” T-Pain recalled when Usher told him he “f***** music up” for real singers.

“I never lost love for Usher,” he said. “That was never a thing. He just made me think about shit a little harder. I thought he was joking, and I laughed, but he was like, “No, for real.”

T-Pain said that after he took time to think bout what Usher said, he went into a depression, Revolt TV reported.

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said. “I was going through so much shit already — from the initial hate of Auto-Tune.”

As for the incident with Jay-Z, T-Pain feels that when Jigga says something isn’t cool, others take heed. “I’m the face of this,” he said. “Just like Lil Yachty was the face of Mumble Rap. So, when you say Auto-Tune is wack, I’m the face. Anytime [Jay-Z] says something is wack, it’s trash.”

He added that the backlash he received after the release of Jigga’s song sent him into a deeper depression. “I was done with life,” he said. “I was suicidal for real. I was like, ‘What the fuck am I doing this for?’”

Still, T-Pain pushed through and wanted to make amends with the New York rapper at Hot 97’s 2009 Summer Jam concert, where they both performed. “I’m like, this is going to be cool as sh** because I am going to shake his hand, and we gone squash it in front of everybody,” he said. “[JAY-Z] looked at my hand like good riddance.”

It must be said that even with the negativity surrounding the use of auto-tune, T-Pain has inspired other big-name artists to also experiment with it in their music. A fact that he’s happy with, adding that no one has made an impact using auto-tune as he has.

“I took it and used it how it wasn’t supposed to be used,” he said. “A ton of people had used it, but nobody was able to influence a generation.”