Phoebe Bridgers didn’t mince phrases when speaking to reporters backstage on the Grammys, calling out the previous head of the Recording Academy after he was just lately accused of rape.
Bridgers, who appeared within the Grammys press room alongside her Boygenius bandmembers Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus following their win for greatest rock efficiency, was requested about the way forward for rock and ladies excelling within the style.
“I’ve one thing to say about ladies,” Bridgers responded. “The ex-president of the Recording Academy, Neil Portnow, stated that if ladies need to be nominated and win Grammys that they need to step up. He’s additionally being accused of sexual violence. And to him I’d wish to say I do know you’re not useless but, however if you find yourself, rot in piss.”
In 2018, when ladies gained solely 17 of the 86 awards at that 12 months’s present — and solely two awards through the dwell present — Portnow informed reporters, “I believe it has to start with ladies who’ve the creativity of their hearts and their souls who need to be musicians, who need to be engineers, who need to be producers, who need to be a part of the business on an govt degree, to step up.”
Portnow ended his tenure as head of the Grammys and the Recording Academy when his contract expired in 2019, and in November, he was sued by a member of the Recording Academy who claimed he drugged and raped her in a New York lodge in 2018.
The lawsuit accuses Portnow of sexual assault, which the Recording Academy “aided and abetted” to “shield their reputations and silence Plaintiff and different ladies within the music business.” A spokesperson for Portnow denied the allegations.
This 12 months’s Grammys was a really totally different turnout for girls than the 2018 ceremony, as 4 totally different females — Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus and Victoria Monét — gained the highest 4 Grammys, mirroring the 2021 Grammys when Swift, Eilish, H.E.R. and Megan Thee Stallion gained the massive 4 awards.
