Grammys 2020: Big speeches and emotional moments (2024)

Billie Eilish was the big winner at the 2020 Grammys, winning all four of the ceremony's main prizes.

The 18-year-old was modest in victory, declaring, "so many other songs deserved this," as she picked up song of the year for Bad Guy.

Accepting the award for best new artist, Eilish also gave her fans the credit for her success.

"They have not been talked about enough tonight [but] they're the only reason any of us are here," she reasoned.

The star's sombre performance of the ballad When The Party's Over was one of the night's highlights, but there were several stand-out performances and speeches over the three-and-a-half-hour show.

Here's a selection of the most emotional, breath-taking and funny moments.

When Demi Lovato took to the stage, it was already a moment loaded with emotional significance. This was to be her first performance since 2018, when she was rushed to hospital after a suspected overdose.

The moment almost got the better of her. She faltered as she began to sing, and asked her pianist to start over, a single tear running down her cheek.

But the 27-year-old rallied round and delivered an astonishingly raw and powerful vocal, as she premiered her new song, Anyone.

Lovato has described the ballad as a "cry for help," written days before she was hospitalised.

"I feel stupid when I sing," she cried in the chorus. "Nobody's listening to me."

We were listening, Demi. Welcome back, and God speed.

In one of the night's best jokes, Alicia Keys took aim at the multitudinous sobriquets of Sean "Puff Daddy / P Diddy" Combs, who was honoured with a lifetime achievement award ahead of the main show.

"If I was to list all his accomplishments or just his names, we'd be here all night," said the host.

But Combs, or Diddy to his friends, was one of the only artists to address the scandal enveloping the Grammys, after claims the voting process was compromised.

"Truth be told, hip-hop has never been respected by the Grammys," Diddy said, accepting his prize at Saturday's pre-Grammy gala. "Every year, y'all be killing us, man."

"This current situation is not a revelation - it's been going on around the world, and for years we've allowed institutions that have never had our interests at heart to judge us. And that stops right now. I'm officially starting a clock. Y'all got 365 days to get this [expletive] together."

The Jonas Brothers rocked the stage near the start of the show, playing one new song (tentatively titled Five More Minutes) and their current single What A Man Gotta Do.

But fans were distracted by something about Nick Jonas's appearance.

"Is it me, or did someone not tell Nick Jonas he had something stuck in his tooth?" one person tweeted. "Nick Jonas with spinach in his teeth is my favourite part of the whole show" added another.

But the singer took it all in his stride, tweeting after the performance: "At least you all know I eat my greens."

Señorita, Camila's duet with Shawn Mendes, was one of 2019's biggest-selling singles - but she chose to perform an album track, First Man, instead.

A simple, stripped-back piano ballad, the track depicts the moment a father walks his little girl down the aisle, while she whispers: "You don't even know how much it means to me now / That you were the first man that really loved me."

As she sang, the cameras cut to Alejandro Cabello in the front row, wiping away tears. By the end of the song, the father and daughter were in each other's arms, having a big old hug.

I'm not crying, I'm just chopping onions for a lasagne.

Lil Nas X's cameo-studded performance of Old Town Road was pretty hard to follow; but for 45 glorious seconds, he popped into sync with 14-legged pop phenomenon BTS.

The boy band are the first Korean artists to perform at the Grammys - and with a new album on the way, they could be the first K-pop band to receive a nomination next year.

Map Of The Soul: 7 is due out next month. On the red carpet, the band promised fans it would blow their socks off.

"Whatever you're expecting, it's going to be better and harder," said RM.

"You will know when you hear the album," added J-Hope, "that liking BTS is the best decision ever".

Tyler, The Creator won best rap album for Igor, a visceral, vulnerable story of a doomed love triangle. But he also gave one of the all-time greatest Grammy performances, with a medley that captured the album's mix of romantic entanglement (Earfquake, assisted by Charlie Wilson and Boyz II Men) and its devastating, messy fall-out (New Magic Wand).

The latter half was incredible to watch, with Tyler screaming into a microphone, surrounded by two-dozen clones in Andy Warhol wigs and bright pink suits on a fake suburban street. When they stomped across the stage, the cameras shook and fell over, the houses caught fire and a huge crater opened up in the road.

As the music ended, Tyler fell backwards into the pit, taking everyone's breath away as he left.

Billie Eilish's brother, Finneas O'Connell, was named producer of the year for his work on her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?

The 22-year-old said the record had been made exclusively in "hotel rooms and our parents' house" because "I'm the most creative where I'm most comfortable."

"It's a huge honour to be given a Grammy for making, you know, home-made cookies," he added.

When Eilish won best song for her smash hit Bad Guy, O'Connell held the trophy aloft and declared: "This is to all of the kids who are making music in their bedroom today. You're going to get one of these."

The country star was there to present the first award of the night, best pop solo performance, to Lizzo.

But he ducked out the back door and raced home afterwards to look after his wife, Nicole Kidman.

"She's home with our girls tonight and I'm heading home ASAP," he added, assuring reporters that Kidman was "in good hands" with nine-year-old Faith and her 11-year-old sister, Sunday.

Returning for her second year as host, Alicia Keys' musicality and generosity of spirit held the sprawling show together.

An early highlight was her cover of Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved, which she turned into a meta-commentary on the year in music and the Grammys itself.

"Rosalía's hot, Beyoncé took us all on safari / We obsessed by BTS, H.E.R, and Lewis Capaldi," she sang, breaking off to ask Capaldi if he was ok with her repurposing his song. He responded with an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

After suggesting Cardi B should replace President Trump in the second verse, she she issued a friendly warning to the winners.

"It's the Grammys / 10,000 hours long," she observed, not incorrectly. "So keep the speeches short / And go for one more song."

Capaldi's original version, a number one on both sides of the Atlantic, was up for song of the year, but lost to Billie Eilish's Bad Guy.

Lizzo won the first prize of the televised ceremony - best pop vocal solo performance for her breakout hit, Truth Hurts.

The star, who'd already opened the show by paying tribute to Kobe Bryant, seemed to reference his death in her speech.

"This whole week I've been lost in my problems, stressed out," she said. "And today, all of my little problems, that I thought were as big as the world, were gone and I realised there were people hurting right now."

Turning to the audience, she made a powerful statement about music's healing powers.

"You guys create beautiful music, you guys create connectivity. And, as I'm speaking to all of y'all in this room, we need to continue to reach out.

"This is the beginning of making music that moves people again, making music that feels good, that liberates people."

"If I hadn't have reached out" to other musicians, she added, "I don't know where I would be right now.

"Probably sleeping in my car."

Overall, it was a good night for the Grammys - but, good grief, parts of the show were a total shambles.

Let's start with Aerosmith's much-vaunted duet with Run-DMC; which fell to pieces faster than the fake polystyrene wall they kicked down at the start of the performance.

Joe Perry's guitar was excruciatingly out of tune, Steven Tyler had apparently swallowed a jackdaw, and Run-DMC seemed to be struggling to find the beat.

All we can say is it must have sounded better live, judging by the enthusiastic reaction it got from Flavor Flav and Lizzo.

Less abhorrent, but still oddly flat, was Usher's tribute to Prince; which featured precisely zero per cent of the late star's incendiary magnetism.

To make it worse, they roped in FKA Twigs, one of pop's most intriguing and versatile performers, and reduced her to a pole dancer. So much for the Grammys' progressive attitude to women.

After the ceremony, the singer tweeted: "Of course I wanted to sing at the Grammys. I wasn't asked this time but hopefully in the future. Nonetheless, what an honour. Congratulations to all winners."

We don't know whose decision it was to get Sharon and Ozzy to read out the nominees for best rap / sung performance, but we hope they get a bonus.

But Sharon soon had the crowd in stitches, as she theatrically recited a list of artists she'd clearly never heard of before.

As well as butchering names like Lil Baby and Young Thug, she took particular relish in lingering over song titles like "Ballin'" and "Drip Too Hard".

Viewers were enthralled.

We're siding with Billboard magazine's Jason Lipshutz, who insisted: "Give Sharon Osbourne an hour-long television show where she just happily reads rap song titles."

Or, at the very least, book her to do the voice-over at next year's Grammys.

See you then.