The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night, and some high-profile fans were in attendance – among them Rihanna, the singer and LeBron James supporter, and Eddy Cue, the top Apple exec and known Warriors superfan.
Rihanna put on a show throughout the game, bowing to James and waving to Warriors fans who heckled her back.
But one moment from the game has led to outrage from Rihanna’s fans on Twitter: After Rihanna bowed, Cue appeared to say something and made a “sit down” gesture to someone nearby.
Cue is a longtime Warriors fan – he even made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle last year when the Warriors beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals.
A tweet with a GIF of Cue yelling and pointing has since been deleted, but we captured it before it was taken down:
Here's another angle of the incident, starting at about 0:14:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_V1SmOOf5I
After some lip-reading, we have some guesses about what Cue said, but we'll let you form your opinion.
Cue quickly sent a tweet claiming he wasn't yelling at Rihanna but talking to a friend a few seats away.
Nothing but love for Rihanna (and KD, too!) As usual I was excited about our lead and actually talking to Marissa, 8 seats to my right.
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 2, 2017
Regardless, Cue's actions are getting him in hot water with Rihanna's fans on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/eileenmcarey/status/870673556547395584https://twitter.com/clapbackanna/status/870667625885519872https://twitter.com/Faiz_Fenty/status/870675731990401024
Apple might have some smoothing over to do if it would want to secure Rihanna's next album as an Apple Music exclusive.