Harry Styles' dancers for his Grammys performance say his rotating set malfunctioned and forced them to 'troubleshoot' in real time

• Harry Styles performed "As It Was" live at the 2023 Grammys on Sunday.
• Two backup dancers have since revealed "ridiculous technical difficulties" that marred the performance.

Harry Styles apparently experienced "ridiculous technical difficulties" during his live performance at the 2023 Grammys.

Styles took the stage on Sunday to perform his smash hit "As It Was," which was nominated for both record and song of the year.

The 29-year-old superstar, who is known for his charisma and enthusiasm onstage, delivered a performance that lacked his usual magnetism. To echo the "As It Was" music video, Styles and his backup dancers were positioned atop a moving turntable, which began to rotate clockwise as the music started.

However, according to some of Styles' dancers, the set was meant to spin in the opposite direction. They say the malfunction forced them to "troubleshoot" the performance in real-time on live TV.

In a now-deleted TikTok, Dexter Da Rocha said Styles and the 12 dancers rehearsed for 10 days "getting down these beautiful formations" and getting comfortable with the moving set, which she described as a "wild challenge."

"Harry did such a good job integrating into it and had this beautiful duet and all this stuff, and this whole time we're practicing with the turntable counterclockwise," she said. We did it loads of times and got it down to the point where we were at dress rehearsal, it was spotless and beautiful."

De Rocha said as soon as the performance began and the set began rotating incorrectly, the dancers tried to "get the attention of the technician," but couldn't. She said the unexpected change made it difficult to simply "stay fucking standing."

"It sounds it'd be easy to walk, it's like a treadmill, but I swear to God, since it's circular, it pulls you in different directions and it's such a special type of balance," she said. "So we got accustomed to one way and it was the opposite way, so luckily we worked together and did our best and got to one cool formation in time for the overhead shot, but had to kind of change the rest."

De Rocha said she was inspired to address the technical difficulties because critics called the performance "lethargic or boring," and said it was "very frustrating" that Styles and his dancers "didn't get to do what we rehearsed."

Another dancer, Brandon Mathis, echoed De Rocha's account on his Instagram story.

"The moment the curtain opened and it was time to perform, our turntable started spinning in reverse, backward, freaking all of us out, on live television, and there was nothing we could do to stop it," he said.

"In real-time, we have to troubleshoot and try to do a complete piece in reverse," he added. "Talk about professionalism."

Mathis also alluded to "ridiculous technical difficulties that none of us could have prepared for" in an Instagram caption, paired with a selection of photos from rehearsals.

De Rocha and Mathis both praised the performance's artistic director Yoann Bourgeois, as well as Styles.

"Harry did his best to be able to walk and reverse everything while he was singing and reverse his entire duet, which was incredible," De Rocha said.

Later in the evening, Styles won album of the year for "Harry's House."