{"id":903530,"date":"2026-09-24T08:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903530\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T08:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:50:12","slug":"dance-monkey-v-the-nrl-did-tones-and-i-really-turn-down-90000-a-minute-because-she-hates-her-own-song-nrl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903530\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance Monkey v the NRL: did Tones and I really turn down $90,000 a minute because she hates her own song? | NRL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma, the NRL<\/a> and Tones and I seem to be at war \u2013 but I can\u2019t make sense of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll try to catch you up. The Dance Monkey singer made headlines this week after it was leaked she\u2019d turned down an offer to perform at next weekend\u2019s NRL grand final. The rugby league boss Peter V\u2019landys said negotiations broke down due to \u201cartistic differences\u201d, and some claimed it was because the Aria award-winning artist didn\u2019t want to play her biggest hit.<\/p>\n

Instead, the grand final will go ahead without pre-game entertainment, and V\u2019landys has put $1m towards junior rugby league \u2013 an idea he\u2019d been toying with for a while, he said. \u201cRather than giving a performer $90,000 a minute, we would prefer to give it to grassroots,\u201d he said on Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cWhen you look at it realistically for 11 minutes, it\u2019s not worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wait \u2013 she turned down maybe $90k a minute because she hates her own song? I don\u2019t love it either, but that\u2019s a lot of money.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know exactly how much she would have been paid \u2013 but it\u2019s definitely true that Tones and I, whose real name is Toni Watson, isn\u2019t a fan of Dance Monkey<\/a>, her ubiquitous megahit that spent 24 weeks at No 1 on the Aria charts. In 2022 she told Kent Small on the Nova Network that she \u201cloathes\u201d it, adding \u201ca lot of the time I don\u2019t want to sing it\u201d. Ironic, for a song about the pressure to perform.<\/p>\n

Tones and I performed with Macklemore in Sydney in 2024. Photograph: Don Arnold\/WireImage<\/p>\n

But according to her management, that isn\u2019t the reason she turned down the gig. Regan Lethbridge of Lemon Tree Music told the ABC they were contacted about the show only three weeks ago, on 5 September; that \u201cno deal had been signed or confirmed in writing\u201d; and that Tones and I had \u201cexplored all avenues to make it work\u201d, but had \u201ca prior commitment with Macklemore\u201d in the US.<\/p>\n

Then the plot thickened further: we emailed the NRL, and they are refuting a lot of what her management said.<\/p>\n

Wait, what?<\/p>\n

Through a spokesperson, the NRL told us that discussions with Tones and I\u2019s label Sony began well before the 5 September date cited by her management. They denied the claim that Tones and I were unable to perform because the request was too last-minute and she had prior commitments; and although they didn\u2019t make a direct link between her allegedly refusing to play the song and the cancellation, they did tell us that her management made it clear that she wouldn\u2019t play Dance Monkey.<\/p>\n

And what did Tones and I\u2019s team say to THAT?<\/p>\n

Not much! Neither her label or management have responded to our increasingly unhinged requests for clarity. But this morning, Tones and I did share an Instagram post announcing three live shows in March 2027 (locations to be announced), with a cheeky aside \u201cPSA: Will be singing all Songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the Macklemore prior commitment \u2013 what\u2019s that about?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting side-plot to the story given the last few weeks that Macklemore\u2019s had<\/a> \u2013 but again, details are thin on the ground. The pair are friends and collaborated on the single Chant in 2022, and a week ago \u2013 when Ed Sheeran was doing a lot of fence-sitting<\/a> \u2013 Tones and I posted a photo of her and Macklemore performing live together: \u201cI am proud of you always, Ben\u201d, she wrote, to which Macklemore replied, \u201cLove you\u201d.<\/p>\n

Maybe they\u2019re making music together? Maybe they\u2019re just hanging out? We couldn\u2019t find any show dates, and her management didn\u2019t get back to us.<\/p>\n

So no one will be playing before the NRL?<\/p>\n

Tones and I did have a crack at suggesting some worthy replacements on Instagram on Tuesday, a diverse group including G Flip, Kaiit, Budjerah, Ruel, Baker Boy<\/a> and Miss Kaninna.<\/p>\n

Shannon Noll had a stab at it too: \u201cLooking at all the legends that have played at the NRL GF!\u201d he posted. \u201cWhat About Me?\u201d<\/p>\n

But V\u2019landys has made up his mind: \u201cPeople will come to the game with or without it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the mystery of what actually went down here remains somewhat unsolved \u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that everybody\u2019s telling a little bit of the truth: that Dance Monkey may have been a problem in some meetings, but that Tones and I had her dance card full regardless. We may never know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma, the NRL and Tones and I seem to be at war \u2013 but I can\u2019t make sense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-903530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}