Following on from the last-minute cancellation of their scheduled performance on The Colbert Report, conspiracy theories are now doing the rounds suggesting that Daft Punk may have pulled a Death Grips and actually never planned on performing.
Yesterday, the cancelled performance was blamed on contractual exclusivity obligations with the Viacom network, who control The Colbert Report‘s Comedy Central channel and MTV, for whom the French duo are expected to make an appearance at the VMAs.
However, Billboard are now reporting that the performance may have never been scheduled to happen in the first place.
Robin Thicke‘s performance of Blurred Lines, which was aired instead of Daft Punk, had actually been recorded a week ago and mentions, Hyundai, the main sponsor of Colbert’s music festival Colbchella. Colbert positioned that performance as a replacement, despite also claiming that the Daft Punk cancellation only came a matter of hours before the show.
MTV were also apparently ruthless during discussions, with reports they “threatened to cut Daft Punk from the awards if the group also appeared on Colbert and would not budge despite pleas from Comedy Central”.
This has raised three main rumours surrounding Colbertgate – 1, the whole thing was a total scam, 2, the whole thing was a sneaky promotional ploy at the hands of the network Viacom to plug the VMAs, or 3, that Thicke recorded his performance as a potential back-up should Daft Punk not be able to make it.
Colbert eviscerated MTV Networks President Van Toffler on air, reading from an email in which Toffler wrote that red tape was restricting any movement, “Not sure I can help you on this one. (Daft Punk’s label Columbia Records) sold us hard on some clip and live appearance based on them not showing up anywhere else.”
They Colbert crew did, however, manage to find the time to perform their own rendition of Get Lucky on the program over night featuring guest vocals from the likes of Matt Damon, Jimmy Fallon, Bryan Cranston, Hugh Laurie and Jeff Bridges. Check it out below.
Watch: The Colbert Report – Get Lucky montage
http://youtu.be/nb9mslFnWMo
