Stormzy announced as latest Brit Awards 2023 performer – joining Harry Styles, Lizzo and more
Stormzy has been added to the line-up for this year’s Brit Awards, organisers have announced.
The British grime star, who is up for three gongs at the ceremony, joins previously announced stars including Harry Styles, Lizzo, Sam Smith and Kim Petras, and Wet Leg.
Following his three previous Brits wins, Stormzy is this year up for artist of the year, best album, and best hip-hop/grime/rap act.
Stormzy’s performance on stage at the awards in 2020. Pic: Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP
One of the biggest British stars of recent years, all of his three albums have all been chart-toppers, and in 2019 he became the first black British solo artist to headline Glastonbury.
The announcement of Stormzy’s performance this year follows controversy around the nominations, with an all-male best artist of the year list leading to questions being raised about the newly introduced gender-neutral categories.
Stormzy is up for the award alongside Styles, George Ezra, Central Cee and Fred Again.
Defending the nomination choices, the awards said that while the lack of female nominees was “disappointing”, it was down to 2022 seeing “fewer high-profile women artists in cycle with major releases” than in 2021.
Why were the male and female artist categories scrapped?
Adele was named artist of the year in 2022, the first year of the new award
Organisers reportedly plan to evaluate their decision to adopt gender-neutral prizes as part of their annual review after the upcoming ceremony, which takes place on a Saturday for the first time this year, on 11 February.
The Brits announced that male and female award categories would be scrapped ahead of the 2022 ceremony, going gender-neutral in an attempt to make the awards more inclusive.
Adele won the inaugural best artist prize and cleaned up with three awards.
Picking up the best artist award, the star told the crowd that while she understood why the gendered prizes had been dropped, she loved being a female artist and wanted to celebrate women. “I am really proud of us,” she said.
Stormzy last performed at the Brits in 2020, when he also picked up the award for best male artist, before the categories were changed.
Lizzo, pictured at the Brits in 2020, is also among the performers and nominees this year. Pic: Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP
With only four nominations out of a possible 25 in mixed categories going to women that year, he paid tribute to the women in his team as he collected his award.
“To be the best male, I have got the most incredible females in my team,” he said. “You lot are the greatest, the best male is nothing without the best females. I love you guys.”
Read more:
Everything you need to know about the 2023 Brit Awards
Brits 2023: The full list of nominations
Styles and Isle of Wight indie rock duo Wet Leg lead this year’s Brit Awards race, with four nods each – coming after both were nominated for the 2022 Mercury Prize.
Cat Burns, Fred Again and The 1975, along with Stormzy, are all in the running for three awards, while Central Cee, George Ezra, Arctic Monkeys, Nova Twins, Aitch, Dave, Eliza Rose, Beyonce, Lizzo, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith all have two nods each.
Burns, David Guetta, Becky Hill and Ella Henderson are also due to perform.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?
This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
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