OlderTaylor Swift is Pulled Into a Grammy Boycott
Justin Bieber and Kanye West will be boycotting the 2017 Grammy Awards today, despite being nominated for several awards each.
Frank Ocean announced that one of the reasons he won’t be attending is Taylor Swift‘s victory for Album of the Year last year.
Frank said he believed Kendrick Lamar‘s album should have been the Album of the Year winner, and Taylor‘s win was “hands down of the of most faulty TV moments I’ve seen.”
That despite Taylor has been nominated for 26 Grammys and won 10 (see which ones here.)
Meanwhile, the lack of even one nomination for Frank‘s two 2016 albums, Blonde and Endless, is the reason Kanye is sitting out the show this year. Back in October, Kanye made the announcement he would not attend if Frank didn’t get nominated.
However, Frank‘s albums were deemed ineligible for this year’s Grammys, because they were not submitted by the deadline, according to the Grammys.
Click inside to read the dramatic history of Grammy boycotts….
Skipping the Grammys sounds unprecedented, but it’s not. Celebs skip the ceremony all the time, either for personal conflicts (Drake will be on tour) or genuine moral opposition to the ceremony (as seems to be the case for Justin and Kanye.)
Kanye didn’t attend the 2014 Grammy Awards after his album, Yeezus, received two nominations but not the nomination for the highest honor, Album of the Year.
He wasn’t the only one. Miley Cyrus stayed home that year playing guitar hero, possibly due to the lack of recognition over her album, Bangerz. (Or maybe she just really likes Guitar Hero?)
This certainly isn’t Justin‘s first Grammy no-show. The 22-year-old singer also skipped in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Bon Iver in 2012 essentially said his win didn’t mean anything when he won Best New Artist.
Jay-Z boycotted both the 1999 and 2002 Grammy Awards, citing that: “I didn’t think they gave the rightful respect to hip hop.”
In 1989, Will Smith refused to attend the show because he was told the hip-hop portion of the event wouldn’t be on TV.
So, no, this isn’t the first time the Grammys have been in the spotlight for potential boycotts or conflict. While the ceremony hasn’t faced as much scrutiny as the Oscars (we all remember #OscarsSoWhite), it has received a lot of criticism for lack of fairness and diversity. (And we agree with Kanye that Frank Ocean‘s album should’ve scored some noms.)
