Massiel Taveras shoved a security guard on the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival red carpet.
Taveras was involved in a heated exchange on the red carpet going into Cannes on Wednesday, May 22, seemingly with the same usher who argued with Kelly Rowland days prior. Footage shared via social media showed the 2007 Miss Dominican Republic struggling to adjust the 15-foot train of her Giannina Azar dress, which featured a large portrait of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns.
In the video, Taveras can be seen telling a group of security guards surrounding her to back off. Among them was a female usher blocking the view of Taveras’ dress with her arm as the actress posed on the famed stairs leading into The Palais des Festivals. As she was entering the theater, Taveras shoved the female security guard who had placed an arm around the actress’s shoulder to usher her inside.
Rowland, 43, had a similar interaction with seemingly the same female security guard on the red carpet on Tuesday, May 21, while at the premiere of the French-Italian film Marcello Mio. In footage shared via X, Rowland was guided by security staff to ascend the staircase into the venue.
The security guard placed a hand behind Rowland’s back and was seen giving her further instructions. However, the interaction grew heated as the singer appeared to scold the security guard with a finger pointed at her face.
Rowland continued up the stairs but turned around to further address the staff member in another heated exchange. At this point, several other security guards had arrived to de-escalate the situation.
“The woman knows what happened, I know what happened,” Rowland told the Associated Press about the incident on Thursday, May 23. “I have a boundary and I stand by those boundaries, and that is it.”
The former Destiny’s Child member added that other women who “did not look like [her]” attending the premiere who had not been “scolded or pushed off or told to get off” the red carpet. “I stood my ground, and she felt like she had to stand hers,” Rowland said. “But I stood my ground.”
While the security guard remains unnamed, her colleagues at Cannes have reportedly come to her defense. “She was an usher working under a lot of pressure to keep people on the carpet moving, so as to stop crowds building up,” an anonymous festival staff member reportedly told the Daily Mail.
“There was no pushing or shoving, or scolding,” the staffer continued. “Security and safety are the priorities, along with keeping to strict timetables set according to contracts — even the celebrities have to stick to the rules.”
