Halsey seemingly shaded the Grammys while accepting an award at the American Music Awards on Sunday.
The 25-year-old singer, who recently tweeted about her disappointment with the Recording Academy after not receiving a Grammy nomination, ranted about how an AMA was a much more meaningful award to win.
“I grew up watching shows like this and I would sit at home wide-eyed and watch artists in these beautiful gowns and handsome suits, like, stroll up the stairs to the stage and they would hold up these awards and they were usually gold-plated and shiny and weighted, these, like, metaphors, these trophies that were supposed to be some kind of validation for the soul-crushing and heartache-inducing work that they put into writing a song and bringing it to life. And to be honest with you, I really believed that fairy tale,” Halsey said as she accepted an AMA for favorite pop/rock song for her hit, “Without me.”
She continued, “I believed these awards. When I was a kid, I used to believe that this award was the ultimate validating and that I’d come up here and laugh and cry and my fans at home would rejoice because we accomplished this thing together.”
Halsey said that now that she’s older, she has learned that awards aren’t really all they’re cracked up to be.
“But that’s okay because I’m up here right now and I am so thankful to the AMAs because they’re the largest fan-voted award show,” she said. “And I’m thankful to the fans because they’re the people who really give a s–t about music and I’m thankful to the AMAs for giving those people a voice.”
She added, “You know I’m going to keep making music for them and for us. Sometimes you grow up and the stuff you believed in starts to lose its magic but music never does because real fans, real artists, and real stories keep that music alive. Thank you!”
Last week Halsey tweeted and then deleted, “I just woke up and the biggest song of my career wasn’t nominated either. Can u guys not take ur anger out on me for once or.”
She then replaced the tweet, writing, “my fans 💕 please do not waste your anger or frustration. i see a lot of you are upset. of course im sad too. none of it matters. literally none of it,” she wrote.