Grammys 2013: Jack White Drops F-Bomb During 'Love Interruption' Performance

UPDATED: White appeared to sing "f--- me" during the live show, though CBS claims he actually said "fight me"

Jack White appeared to drop an F-bomb on the Grammys on Sunday night, but CBS claims he didn't.

White sang what sounded like the F-word during his performance of "Love Interruption" with Ruby Amanfu during the show, which aired live from the Staples Center on the East Coast. While the lyrics to their song don't include the words "f--- me," it appeared that White and/or Amanfu added them in during their live performance.

Many Grammy viewers immediately took to social media to note the apparent utterance of the swear word.

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But Martin Franks, executive vp planning, policy and government affairs at CBS, insists that the F-word was not sung during White and Amanfu's performance and that the network's editors have listened to the performance multiple times on state-of-the-art equipment to verify that. He says the word that was sung was "fight."

"We had 10 editors, and three people on site, and all are experienced, all with multiple Grammy, multiple Big Brother, multiple Tony experience, experience with doing these delays," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "They went through all of the rehearsals. They have prepared meticulously. And not a single one of them heard anything other than 'fight.'"

CBS executives say they were so confident that it was "fight," they did not edit it for the later broadcast on the West Coast. CBS declined to provide video of the song to include with this story.

Later in the telecast, after Mumford & Sons won album of the year, one of the band members also said the F-word, which was caught by CBS censors. The show airs on a 10-second delay.

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Last Sunday, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco dropped the F-bomb on CBS' live coverage of the Super Bowl, which airs without a delay and is not censored. After the Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 34-31 in the Super Bowl, Flacco -- the game's MVP -- exclaimed, "This is f---ing awesome,” on live TV while embracing teammate Marshal Yanda.

While the Parents Television Council blasted CBS for letting the language air uncensored, CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview last week that that's the nature of live events.

"It’s unfortunate, but in the heat of battle sometimes it happens,” he said. “We try to avoid it, but sometimes it happens in live television."