It only took about eight years, but Anna Kendrick is taking full accountability for the "Cups Song" from Pitch Perfect invading summer camps during a particularly hellish summer in 2013.
Kendrick stars as Beca in the Pitch Perfect franchise and her character does a version of "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone" for her audition for the Barden Bellas acapella group. First performed by the Carter Family in 1931, Beca uses a plastic cup as her percussion, and her version involves a specific routine of tapping and flipping the cup over. If you're a Pitch Perfect fan, it's a signature scene of the franchise and Kendrick's version of the song actually went on to peak at number six on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and sold 2.5 million downloads by October of 2013.
Kendrick's apology for the song comes courtesy of TV writer and former camp counselor Ellory Smith, who recently came forward to talk about being a camp counselor during the summer of 2013 when the song began to wreak havoc. The song is easy to perform because it's a catchy acapella tune that can be formed with dinnerware. Despite how fun the song is to learn, Smith said campers performed the song so often with a blatant disregard for their counselors' eardrums that the camp had to take action in the form of removing their banning empty cups. You can check out Smith's recollection of the events below and Kendrick's apology for what has seemed to scar Smith for life:
The "Cups Song" definitely carried over for years after the first film's release in my circle of friends. From the moment the first film came out and even across its two sequels, I knew A LOT of people that recorded their own versions of it because it's simplistic enough to get it down but looks complicated enough to make you look kind of cool when you're doing it. For those involved with the franchise, particularly Anna Kendrick, I think whatever annoyance caused by the song over the years has been worth it. The three Pitch Perfect movies have grossed $565 million globally against a collective budget of $91 million across all three films. I'd be doing the "Cups Song" all the way to the bank if I were them.
Did the "Cups Song" become a thorn in your side when it was first released?