A mighty mix-up at French music awards

"And the winner of this year's award for best song by an international artist is......Katy Perry for 'I kissed a girl'."

So went the announcement during the NRJ Music awards ceremony broadcast live on national television in France over the weekend.

And on to the stage tripped Perry applauding herself to the strains of.... "Disturbia" by Rihanna.

Huh?

Had the television production team scheduled the wrong song?

After all Rihanna along with Coldplay "Viva la vida", Estelle and her "American Boy", "Beggin" from Madcon, and of course Perry were among the five artists shortlisted.

Unperturbed, Perry went on to thank the Pussycat Dolls, who had pulled her name out of the magic envelope, "everyone who had voted for her" of course, and told the packed auditorium in the southern French town of Cannes and the millions of viewers following the live broadcast on national television,

"I always love coming to France, and it's great to be in Cannes and I'm really ***ing nervous right now" (translated for more sensitive Gallic ears as "I feel really VERY nervous").

And well she might have been - "nervous" that is. Because she could have taken her cue from the production team.

You see there had apparently been something of a cock-up in the distribution of the winning envelopes.

Indeed while Perry had also been nominated and would later go on (rightly) to collect the prize in the best international album category for "One of the boys", it was in fact Rihanna who should have been on stage at that moment to collect the gong for best song.

The two awards followed each other in the evening's schedule and in a joint statement issued afterwards by TF1 and the national music radio station NRJ, the muddle was put down to a "simple human error."

"The two envelopes, as in the case of all those carrying the names of the other winners had been verified and sealed beforehand," read the statement.

"We apologise to both Rihanna and Katy Perry for the mistake, as well as the whole of the public."

Viewers might not have made the (dis)connection at the time between Perry receiving the award to the music of Rihanna, as in the time honoured tradition of events broadcast live "the show went on".

It wasn't until the closing minutes that the presenter, Nikos Aliagas announced that there had been an error and that Rihanna had in fact won.

Whoops.

The awards, organized annually, are based on the votes of the public in a poll carried out on NRJ's website in the weeks prior to the ceremony.