The variations in band shape with excited state energy found for the triplet metal to ligand charge transfer ((MLCT)-M-3) emission spectra of ruthenium-bipyridine (Ru-bpy) chromophores at 77 K have been postulated to arise from excited state/excited state configurational mixing. This issue is more critically examined through the determination of the excited state energy dependence of the radiative rate constants (k(RAD)) for these emissions. Experimental values for k(RAD) were determined relative to known literature references for Ru-bpy complexes. When the lowest energy excited states are metal centered, k(RAD) can be anomalously small and such complexes have been identified using density functional theory (DFT) modeling. When such complexes are removed from the energy correlation, there is a strong (MLCT)-M-3 energy-dependent contribution to k(RAD) in addition to the expected classical energy cubed factor for complexes with excited state energies greater than 10 000 cm(-1). This correlates with the DFT calculations which show significant excited state electronic delocalization between a pi(bpy-orbital) and a half-filled d pi*-(Ru-III-orbital) for Ru-bpy complexes with (MLCT)-M-3 excited state energies greater than about 16 000 cm(-1). Overall, this work implicates the "stealing" of emission bandshapes as well as intensity from the higher energy, strongly allowed bpy-centered singlet pi pi* excited state.