The BRIT Awards: most memorable moments of all time

Little Mix made history at the 2021 BRIT awards by being the first girl group to ever win the award for Best British Group. The trio celebrated their win after ten years in the industry and gave a shout-out to all the girl bands that had come before them including the Spice Girls, All Saints and Girls Aloud. 

Former group member Jesy Nelson also received a mention in the band's emotional speech. 

Lead singer of Queen Freddie Mercury made his final public appearance at the 11th BRIT Awards in 1990 while collecting an award for outstanding contribution. 

At the time, it wasn't public knowledge that Freddie had been diagnosed with AIDS three years earlier. The rock star announced his diagnosis one day before he died in November 1991. 

Who can forget the 1996 BRIT Awards when the late Michael Jackson almost had his thunder stolen by Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker? 

It's one of those moments that has certainly gone down in BRITs history and marked the one and only time that the King of Pop performed at the ceremony. 

While Michael was belting out his hit Earth Song, surrounded by dancers clad in dishevelled clothing and videos of starving children projected on a huge screen, Jarvis stormed the stage and repeatedly pointed his behind at Michael before being dragged off by security.

After the show, Jarvis was arrested as he was accused of hurting three children on stage. However, he was later released without charge and claimed his stage invasion was due to him not liking Michael portraying himself as a Jesus-like saviour.

It's no secret that Robbie Williams and Liam Gallagher have had a very strained relationship in the past, and during the 2000 BRIT Awards their feud came to a head when Robbie took to the stage. 

Accepting his award for Best Video, the Angels hitmaker challenged Oasis frontman Liam to a fight! That's right, on national TV, Robbie suggested that he and Liam should each put up £100,000 and battle it out in a ring on TV. Thankfully, despite their ongoing war-of-words, a fight never materialised.

Adele stole the show at the 2012 BRIT Awards for two reasons. Firstly, her performance of Rolling In The Deep was epic! And secondly, she was cut off by host James Corden during her acceptance speech for Album of the Year. 

After taking to the stage and being handed her award by the late George Michael – who showed up especially because he knew Adele was the winner – Adele took a few moments to take in the roaring cheers from the crowd. However, it seems that BRIT bosses thought she took a little too long, as after a couple of words James appeared on the podium and informed her he had to cut her off so he could introduce Blur, who were closing the show. 

A shocked Adele wound up throwing up her middle finger before storming off stage and Blur were welcomed by sounds of booing from the audience.

Adele got her own back the following year though when she won an award and gave a speech via a video link from LA. Slipping in a little dig, she said: "I won't keep you too long because I don't want to interrupt the Best Album speech at the end of the night…" Classic Adele.

2015 was a pretty tame year for the BRITs – that is until Madonna performed and ended up taking a dramatic tumble down some stairs! 

The Queen of Pop was happily belting out her song Living for Love when a dancer went to rip off her cape. However, instead of seamlessly removing itself from around Madonna's neck, it got stuck and she went flying backwards down a small flight of stairs. 

Luckily,  the singer walked away unscathed but the moment still garnered thousands of memes and is often still referred to on social media to this day.

Not only was 1997 the first year the Spice Girls performed at the BRITs after releasing their record-breaking debut single Wannabe the year before. 

But it was also the year that Geri Halliwell gave us THE dress. The now-iconic Union Jack mini dress that has gone down in history as one of the most recognised stage outfits of all time! 

The dress is so iconic, that years after their BRITs performance it actually sold at auction for a staggering £41,320.