Teddy Riley Apologizes To Comedian For Snapping At Him In "Verzuz" Comments

Teddy Riley issued an apology to comedian Tony Baker after sounding off on him in the comments of Alicia Keys and John Legend's "Verzuz" battle.

BYLynn S.
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Teddy Riley is sincerely sorry for losing his temper on comedian Tony Baker. On Friday (June 19th), Alicia Keys and John Legend participated in a hit battle as part of the "Verzuz" series to celebrate Juneteenth. The evening itself was a major success, but there was quite a bit of tension in the comments section of the IG live at one point. Comedian Tony Baker noticed that Teddy Riley had entered the chat, and decided to clown him for the infamous trainwreck that was his and Babyface's first attempt at a battle of their own.

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"Teddy Riley pulled up!" Tony commented. "Let's pray that we don't lose the internet connection." As you may recall, Teddy and Babyface planned to face off in a "Verzuz" battle back in April, but after Teddy experienced a myriad of technical difficulties, they were forced to reschedule. A few days later, they gave it another shot, and thankfully, things ran smoothly. However, Teddy's endured a ton of lighthearted ridicule since then, and it looks like he's had just about enough of it.

"Tony Baker if you want to continue being funny you got to let Oh jokes become the pass or you will be stuck in the past brother," Teddy replied. "Grow up and get money! Remind you to joke Only makes me money but you still broke." Tony shared a screenshot of Teddy's comment and wrote, "Gotdammit. @theshaderoom TEDDY HAS HAD IT!! His typos deflated the whole assault tho...."

However, it looks like Teddy has reflected on his words and decided to apologize to Tony. He explained that he just wasn't in the mood to be made fun of, especially on such a historic Black holiday like Juneteenth. "First of all, I want to say to Tony Baker, my apologies as a brother to a brother," he began. "You already know that what I do is music. I don’t tell jokes and I don’t do the prank thing but sometimes you have to— when you go to a comedy club or anything— you have to be able to embrace that."

"I had just woken up and I wanted to see Alicia Keys and John Legend ‘cause I’m a fan, you know, we all get to be fans and that was my moment to fan out and see my brother and sister do their thing," he continued. "I wasn’t looking forward to a meme or a comedian to come out and say ‘Teddy Riley’ and then John Legend came out and said some stuff, which is cool. I just snapped when it came to Tony and I didn’t mean to."

"My whole thing is, today’s a day where we uplift and we push and we encourage," he pointed out. "This nation needs to come together because the moment we do, we are strength. To Tony, man, I hope we get to work together and my apologies to you and to anybody if it was offensive ‘cause that’s not me."


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About The Author
<b>Staff Writer</b> <!--BR--> Originally from Vancouver, Lynn Sharpe is a Montreal-based writer for HNHH. She graduated from Concordia University where she contributed to her campus for two years, often producing pieces on music, film, television, and pop culture at large. She enjoys exploring and analyzing the complexities of music through the written word, particularly hip-hop. As a certified Barb since 2009, she has always had an inclination towards female rap.