Adele, who won the award for album of the year at 2012’s Brit Awards, flipped her middle finger when her emotional acceptance speech was suddenly cut off by the host to introduce Blur.
The 23-year-old singer, who won the top award for the night, was about to tell the audience and her fans how proud she was to be flying the flag for Britain, when James Corden interrupted her.
Adele, who earlier performed a stunning rendition of "Rolling In The Deep", said afterwards that it was “to all the suits” of the show.
"The Someone Like You" hitmaker was on stage accepting her second award of the night, after taking home Best Female Artist, which was presented by George Michael.
Corden then appeared on stage, met by boos from the crowd and cut off Adele.
Adele didn’t seem to take the interruption too kindly and showed how this gesture had annoyed her.
Corden introduced Blur, who performed three songs. The group had earlier won the Outstanding Contribution Award and frontman Damon Albarn got away with made a rambling speech, the longest of the night.
Adele later clarified her intention behind flipping the finger.
“I was about to thank the British public for their support. They cut me off, sorry if I offended anyone but the suits offended me. I got cut off during my speech and flung the middle finger. But that finger was to the suits at the Brit Awards, not to my fans,” she said.
Her fans and a number of celebrities later took to Twitter to support her.
“ITV Brits executive producer why did you cut off Adele! bloody rude ! shame anyway respect Adele well deserved jox,” TV chef Jamie Oliver wrote.
The host spoke to Laura Whitmore at the post show party screened on ITV2 and told her how bad he felt at cutting off Adele.
“I feel bad about having to cut Adele off I don’t understand why I was made to,” Corden said.
“I was having the best night of my life and then I was told to cut her off. She’s the biggest star in the world and I love her. I don’t understand what happened I'm really upset,” he added.