In 2002, Kelly Rowland and Nelly released their collaboration “Dilemma," a defining early-2000s R&B hit.
Equally as iconic is the song’s music video, which introduced a variety of new technologies. In the video, Rowland is seen texting Nelly from a mobile phone with a full QWERTY keyboard — a revolutionary device at the time. However, it seems that the device was so modern that neither Rowland nor anyone on the video’s production crew seemed to know how to send a text message.
In a famous scene from the video, Rowland types out a message on what appears to be a spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel. Years after the song and video, this particular moment remains a joke on the internet and the subject of many memes. In a conversation with Mariah Carey and Ravyn Lenae for Elle, published on Monday, October 6, Rowland explained that she’s not even sure why this moment was written into the video.
“I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to text on Microsoft Excel,” Rowland said. “But it chases me everywhere that I go.”
Rowland has seen the many memes and fan reactions to this particular moment. But she says she hears about it in real life even more than she does online.
“Everybody’s always asking me ‘Why were you—,’ I say ‘I don’t know,’” Rowland said. “I was given the device. It had [Microsoft Excel] on it. And here we are in the video. They’re like, ‘Oh, we need a shot of it.’ I was like, ‘I guess this is right.’ And here we are, [almost] 25 years later, ‘Why are you texting—’ man, I don’t know.”
She continued, revealing she is “literally asked that every week.” Technological errors aside, “Dilemma” was one of the biggest hits of the 2000s, and even reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.