Soccer star Ada Hegerberg won the inaugural Women’s Ballon d’Or for best player only to have the award overshadowed by a crude request for her to twerk on stage.
The cringe-worthy moment came when the Norwegian national team athlete accepted her award and was promptly asked by the ceremony’s host, Martin Solveig, if she could twerk — a reference to a dance move made popular by singer Miley Cyrus, NBC News explained.
Aga Hegerberg was awarded the Ballon d'Or as the world's best female soccer player of 2018. She gave a wonderful speech encouraging young girls to believe in themselves.
Then the emcee asked her to twerk. I'm not kidding.pic.twitter.com/W53jKK79H4
— Mark Elliott (@markmobility) December 4, 2018
A curt and obviously uncomfortable “no” was all Hegerberg had to say in response as her predominantly male counterparts in the audience looked stunned.
Solveig later apologized after receiving a number of strong criticisms on Twitter.
“I’m a little amazed and astonished by what I’m reading on the internet,” he said in a video message. “This was a joke, probably a bad one. And I want to apologize to the one I may have offended, sorry about that.”
Not to be overshadowed, Hegerberg’s acceptance speech acknowledged the gravity of her win and mentioned her hope that it spoke to little girls with dreams an aspirations around the world.
“It is important to show young girls that they can believe in themselves and I hope they are inspired by this,” she said.
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