Anyone who has been on the Internet in the past two decades has no doubt seen the clip: singer Kelly Rowland trying to send Nelly a text message via Microsoft Excel, of all things, in the 2002 music video for their song “Dilemma.” The tech snafu has been memed up the wazoo in the 22 years since the video debuted, and now the Destiny’s Child icon is addressing the hilarious gadget gaffe.
The performer—who can currently be seen starring in the critically lambasted Tyler Perry thriller Mea Culpa, which you can stream now with a Netflix subscription—recently appeared on Mystical Kitchen’s “Last Meal” series. After jokingly being introduced by the show’s host Josh Scherer as “the only person in history to successfully send a text message via Microsoft Excel,” Rowland exclaimed:
Oh my god, do you know how much flack I get from that?…It’s fine, I’m so used to it now.
Rowland cracked up at the memory of the technological blunder. And when asked by Scherer if no one working on the music video noticed that it was, at the time, impossible to text someone through the spreadsheet editor system, she added:
No! And I’m actually mad at them that they did it because they made me look nuts.
However, per the talk-show host, it’s apparently possible nowadays to put a hyperlink to an email underneath an Excel spreadsheet, which Rowland can claim was what she was doing the entire time. She poked fun at herself, though, saying that there was truly no reason she should have been mad at Nelly for not returning her “text,” which read “Where you at? Holla when you get this,” in the “Dilemma” clip:
What did you expect? Because it’s just a draft, my dear!
Check out the funny interview clip below:
Fans joined in on the joke via social media, commenting on the Instagram video:
- “She was simply ahead of her time” – @svminu
- “Finally justice for Kelly” – @a.stationary.man
- “This was a pop culture moment I’ll not soon forget 😂” – @corysteinberg
- “Someone had to merge those cells” – @chillbaca
- “The guy would have seen the text if they were both shared in the Sheets file” – @tamoderos
- “Black women in STEM 🙌🏾” – @christhebrave_
The former X Factor judge seemed to be having a much better time during the Mythical Kitchen interview than her much-publicized Today show appearance, during which the singer-actress walked off set after a dressing room dispute. (Allegedly, Jennifer Lopez—in studio to promote her new This Is Me…Now album and movie—had taken the larger green room that Rowland wanted.) Kelly was replaced last minute by Rita Ora.
Thankfully, it seems like Rowland had a better sense of humor about her viral Excel mistake than that supposed dressing-room slight. And hopefully she keeps up that positive mindset when taking in the response to Mea Culpa, which, though it’s currently sitting with a dismal 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, did lead Netflix’s Global Top 10 chart with 16 million total views in its first week. Kelly Rowland may not know how to correctly use the Microsoft Office Suite, but she sure knows how to dominate a streaming algorithm.
