After cleaning up at the Grammy Awards last year, Billie Eilish was set to make a decidedly smaller splash at the 63rd annual ceremony on Sunday night. That is, until the final award of the evening was announced.
Besides picking up a single trophy for her James Bond theme No Time To Die and a suitably moody performance early in the show, Billie seemed happy to play second fiddle to the night’s other nominees, including Megan Thee Stallion, who scored multiple awards throughout the ceremony.
So, when Beatles drummer Ringo Starr announced that she’d won the Record of the Year Grammy for the second year in a row, a shell-shocked Billie and her brother, Finneas, took the stage.
Billie said she never expected to take home the award, seemingly stunned that she beat out competitors, including Doja Cat (Say So), Dua Lipa (Don’t Start Now), Post Malone (Circles), DaBaby and Roddy Ricch (ROCKSTAR), Black Pumas (Colors), Beyoncé (Black Parade), and Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage remix, which also features Beyoncé.
In her acceptance speech, the 19-year-old singer plainly stated that the Savage rapper was far more deserving of the win.
“This is really embarrassing for me,” Billie said at the top of her speech. “Megan, girl ... I was gonna write a speech about how you deserve this but then I was like, ‘There’s no way they’re going to choose me,’ I was like, ‘It’s hers.’ You deserve this. You had a year that I think is untoppable. You are a queen. I want to cry thinking about how much I love you. You are so beautiful. You are so talented. You deserve everything in the world. I think about you constantly. I root for you always. You deserve it, honestly.”
She then asked everyone in the limited audience to cheer for Megan before giving some shoutouts to her team.
“I really do appreciate this,” Billie concluded. “Thanks for seeing me.”
At the 2020 ceremony, Billie became the youngest artist to make a clean sweep of the “Big Four” categories: Best New Artist, Song of the Year and Record of the Year for Bad Guy, and Album of the Year for When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
At the time, she said she also felt undeserving of the award, telling the crowd after winning, “Can I just say I think Ariana Grande deserves this?”
Her move on Sunday night, however, reminded many viewers watching at home of the 2017 ceremony, where Adele dedicated her Album of the Year win to Beyoncé, using most of her time on stage to gush about the music superstar.