Canadian pop singer The Weeknd has said that the Grammys don’t mean anything to him anymore.
When Grammy nominations were announced in November, fans were shocked that The Weeknd, whose After Hours album was one of the biggest of 2020, was completely shutout.
At the time, he tweeted that the Grammys were “corrupt” and that he was owed “transparency”. Now he says he’s over it.
Speaking to Billboard, the artist, born Abel Tesfaye, said, “Look, I personally don’t care anymore. I have three Grammys, which mean nothing to me now, obviously,” The Weeknd said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, I want the Grammy!’ It’s just that this happened, and I’m down to get in front of the fire, as long as it never happens again.”
“I suck at giving speeches anyways,” he added. “Forget awards shows.”
The Weeknd, however, did open up about how the snub affected him. “I use a sucker punch as an analogy. Because it just kind of hit me out of nowhere,” he explained. “I definitely… felt things. I don’t know if it was sadness or anger. I think it was just confusion.”
He went on, “I just wanted answers. Like, ‘What happened?’ We did everything right, I think. I’m not a cocky person. I’m not arrogant. People told me I was going to get nominated. The world told me. Like, ‘This is it; this is your year.’ We were all very confused.”
The Blinding Lights singer also said he believes there may have been a racial aspect to it…
“I think the only real answer is that in the last 61 years of the Grammys, only 10 Black artists have won album of the year,” he noted. “I don’t want to make this about me. That’s just a fact.”
The Weeknd is now prepping for his Super Bowl halftime performance; which will be 24 minutes long, rather than the usual 12. He’s also put up $7 million of his own money, his team says, “to make this halftime show be what he envisioned.” We’ll see his vision on February 7.