Brit Awards Face Ofcom Complaints Over Sabrina Carpenter’s Performance and Charli XCX’s Outfit

Images via Fred Duval; Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock

This year’s Brit Awards weren’t just about celebrating music—they also sparked hundreds of complaints to UK media watchdog Ofcom. The awards show, which aired live on ITV, received 825 complaints, with most directed at Sabrina Carpenter’s pre-watershed performance and Charli XCX’s revealing outfit.

Carpenter, who opened the show with a theatrical mash-up of Espresso and Bed Chem (featuring Rule Britannia!), donned a sparkly red military-style mini-dress with matching suspenders. Her routine included an intimate moment with a dancer dressed as a soldier, which some viewers found inappropriate for an 8:15 PM broadcast.

Charli XCX, who dominated the night with five awards—including Album of the Year for Brat—also made headlines for her sheer black dress. Addressing the controversy in her acceptance speech, she quipped, “I heard that ITV were complaining about my nipples. I feel like we're in the era of 'free the nipple' though, right?"

Despite the attention, these complaints are relatively minor by Ofcom’s standards. The watchdog has yet to decide whether it will launch an official investigation. For context, Piers Morgan’s comments about Meghan Markle on Good Morning Britain drew a record-breaking 58,000 complaints in 2021.

Meanwhile, the Brit Awards also made history in other ways—Sabrina Carpenter received the resurrected Global Success Award, an honor previously given to British acts like Adele and Ed Sheeran. The category had been on hiatus since 2019, leading some to speculate it was revived to secure Carpenter’s performance.

Controversy aside, it was a big night for music, with Charli XCX, Raye, and a surprise Billie Eilish win all taking center stage. Whether Ofcom takes action or not, the Brit Awards certainly kept people talking.