Actress Francine Diaz and Orange & Lemons frontman Clem Castro have already patched things up after a confusing incident at a recent event caused a stir online.
In an exclusive interview with ABS-CBN, Francine and Clem, along with the event organizer, cleared the air about the now-viral videos showing the band leaving the stage after the actress performed ahead of them during an event in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro last April 30.
According to earlier reports, the OPM band was supposed to perform before Francine, whose slot was between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. However, after a miscommunication, Francine’s team requested to move her performance up since she only had one song, and while they got the go-signal, Orange & Lemon wasn’t informed of the schedule changes.
Clem admitted things got hectic during the show, which was delayed by two hours. He then apologized for his reaction.
“I apologized for my behavior, I explained my side. They explained their side. And we found the root cause of the problem—it’s miscommunication,” he said.
Clem also shared that they were shocked to see that hate messages began to swell online causing them to ask if the two parties could meet to patch things up.
“Gusto kong mag-damage control on the matter, because it’s getting out of hand. It was so fast. Social media was so fast. We started to see a lot of hate messages, or mention,” he added.
“Kami lang lahat nakakaalam and we discussed it internally. We never released any official statement because we didn’t want to fuel the fire. We don’t want more assumptions, more judgments from the masses, music supporters, or fans. We don’t want to give more confusion,” Clem continued.
Francine echoed Clem’s sentiments and also apologized for not acknowledging the band before her performance.
“Pero nag-sorry din po ako kay Sir Clem, kasi at that time, I wasn’t thinking properly. Wala ako sa right state of mind…I should’ve acknowledged them. But because of intimidation, hindi ko po alam yung gagawin ko,” Francine stated.
She also said that it wasn’t her intention to disrespect.
“Nag-apologize din po ako kay Sir Clem, kasi kahit hindi ko po intention na mag-disrespect, ganu’n po ang nangyari. Ganun ‘yung naging kalabasan,” she added.
On the other hand, the show organizer, Kylee Dioneda, took responsibility for the miscommunication.
“I sincerely apologize for what happened. It was a misunderstanding due to the hectic nature of the event,” said Kylee.