The audio picks up Burns swearing at her computer. “Stop it,” she says. “I f—— hate this … Why do you do this?” Her frustration carries on for nearly a full minute.
One listener spotted the slip-up and shared it in a Facebook group dedicated to psychological thrillers. Soon after, the clip landed on TikTok, where it went viral.
Speaking with TODAY.com, Burns explained the outburst came from her recording software failing to play back her audio. Because she also handled the editing, she hadn’t realized the meltdown slipped into the final version until a listener emailed her. “I thought, ‘Yeah, I narrated that book,’ and then I hear it, and I thought, ‘I am in such big trouble,'” Burns says.
At first, the narrator admits she was “terrified” by the attention. But the response from listeners reassured her. “I was so nervous and so absolutely mortified, but I did read a bunch of the comments people wrote, and I thought that is so nice, nobody’s saying, ‘You’re awful,'” she says. “Everyone’s like ‘We get it.'”
@kateburns75 I woke up this morning to learn there’s an audiobook blooper of me crashing out because I’m technologically challenged and my recording software was giving me a hard time. To the half a million of you who heard that, thank you for giving me some grace. I apologize and it definitely won’t happen again. Thank you to the person who let me know, as well as the person who originally posted it — mortifying, but gives me the opportunity to fix something that obviously needs to be fixed.
♬ original sound – Kate Burns
Burns even made her own TikTok account to respond, with a bio that now reads: “Tech-challenged voiceover artist for books, major brands & a crash out.” In her first post, she wrote: “I woke up this morning to learn there’s an audiobook blooper of me crashing out because I’m technologically challenged and my recording software was giving me a hard time. To the half a million of you who heard that, thank you for giving me some grace. I apologize and it definitely won’t happen again.”
A veteran voice artist with more than 20 audiobooks to her name, Burns noted with a laugh that she has “never actually been hired to just lose it completely like I did.” She has since contacted her publisher to fix the error, but also admitted she plans to “cut herself some slack” echoing fans who commented, “We support you.”
For Burns, the ordeal had an unexpected upside: connection. “I wonder, ‘Does anybody listen to the books that I narrate?” she says. “To hear people say ‘I’ve listened to you. Your voice has gotten me through stuff’ … It’s really awesome.”
