Big Boi’s Feathered Friend Steals the Show, Pet Owl Freaks Out Onstage

Big Boi’s recent college football game performance took an unexpected turn when he introduced a live owl onstage. Things quickly took a nosedive as the bird went on the offensive.

Outkast’s Antwan Patton, known as Big Boi, has a penchant for owls and owns a few as pets. During his performance, one of his owls wasn’t feeling the attention from the crowd or being onstage—and it was all caught on video.

According to TMZ, Big Boi was at Kennesaw State University in Georgia with one of his pet owls. The school’s mascot is an owl, so on the surface it made sense to have an owl onstage at a school that honors it as its representative. As the rapper took the stage holding the owl, the bird immediately started flapping its wings and appeared to have stage fright. As the owl flapped on the ground, singer Sleepy Brown took to the microphone to draw the crowd’s attention away from it.

Meanwhile, Big Boi is seen trying to tend to the bird and gets help from someone in taking it offstage. Without missing a step, Big Boi is still on the mic, singing the lyrics to the song while he releases the glove attached to the chain that held the owl to the guy who stepped onstage to help him out.

With the bird gone, the rapper returns to center stage to join Sleepy, as if that scene was a part of the performance.

TMZ mentioned that during a 2019 Rolling Stone interview Big Boi showed off the four pet owls he owns: Tula, Simon, Whodini, and Hootie.