BET Awards mistakenly include former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown in its In Memoriam segment

San Francisco Chronicle

"I couldn’t figure out why the phone was all lit up,” the 86-year-old Brown, who served as San Francisco mayor from 1996 to 2004, said of learning of last night's snafu. “Finally, my niece called and she was pissed off — she said, ‘If you’re going to die, you’re supposed to tell me.’” Brown was mistaken for Pro Football Hall of Fame former Oakland Raiders cornerback Willie Brown, who died last October at age 78. Brown says he received a phone call from a BET executive who “profusely apologized” for the error. Brown said he told the executive: "Whatever you do, please don’t fire anybody." The segment was later corrected for the West Coast broadcast.