Women dominate this year’s Grammys, with female artists taking home the biggest four awards of the night.
Taylor Swift made history when she won best album for Midnights, becoming the first artist to win the prize for a fourth time, having previously won for Fearless,1989 and Folklore.
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Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep was late to the Grammys, interrupting host Trevor Noah’s opening speech.
The ceremony was the first big music event Swift has attended since falling victim to a deepfake attack on social media late last month, when fake, sexually explicit images of her were shared online.
Accepting the prize, Swift ushered her team around her saying, “Guys I feel so alone” before going on to thank everyone who made the album a success.
She said: “I would love to tell you this is the best moment of my life, but I feel this happy when I finish a song, or when I crack the code to a bridge that I love, or when I’m shortlisting a music video, or when I’m working with my dancers.
“For me the reward is the work… All I want to do is keep doing this, so thanks so much for giving me the opportunity. Mind blown!”
The award was presented by Canadian superstar Celine Dion, who in 2022 revealed that she was suffering from the rare neurological disorder known as stiff-person syndrome (SPS), forcing her to cancel numerous tour dates.
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Clearly emotional to be back on the stage, she told the crowd: “When I say that I’m happy to be here, I really mean it from my heart”.
Swift also delighted her legion of fans by revealing during the show that she would be releasing a new album on 19 April – The Tortured Poets Department – and sharing a photo of the album’s front cover on social media.
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Accepting best pop vocal album, the 34-year-old said she’d be keeping the secret for the last two years.
Record of the year was taken by Miley Cyrus, for her viral summer hit Flowers, who broke her no-Grammy spell with two wins on the night. She said that she hoped her life didn’t change as it was already “beautiful.”
Reeling off a list of people to thank, the 31-year-old star who was wearing a sequined black gown with a high side split joked, “I don’t think I forgot anyone… But I may have forgotten underwear”.
Cyrus also won best pop solo performance for Flowers, which she performed during the ceremony.
Accepting her award from Mariah Carey, she told the audience she’d nearly missed the start of the show due to the rain, going on to tell a story of a little boy who could not catch a butterfly until one landed on his nose, concluding, “this song is my butterfly”.
Image: Big hair, don’t care – Miley Cyrus gets her first Grammy. Pic: AP
The award was presented by record producer Mark Ronson, along with his mother-in-law, Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep.
Song of the year went to Billie Eilish, for her Barbie song What Was I Made For? who appeared to be truly shocked by her own win, telling the audience, “This is the dumbest thing… Damn, I’m shocked,” and concluding her speech, “This is stupid, I’m not supposed to be here”.
Image: Billie Eilish poses in the press room with the awards for best song written for visual media and song of the year for “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie the Album” during the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo
The track from the movie which dominated the summer and broke box office records also took home the award for best song written for visual media.
Eilish performed on the night, dressed in black sunglasses and a pink headscarf in homage to the 1965 Barbie Poodle parade doll.
Image: Victoria Monet accepts the award for best new artist during the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Best new artist went to R&B singer-songwriter Victoria Monet, who kicked off her acceptance speech by thanking “the champagne servers of the night,” going on to dedicate her award to anyone “who has a dream”.
Using the analogy of a growing plant in the “soil” of the music industry, Monet said her “roots had been growing underground for so long, and were finally sprouting over ground”.
Image: SZA gets emotional on stage. Pic: AP
SZA – who had the most nominations going into the night – took three awards – including best R&B song for Snooze, giving an emotional and out of breath speech due to the fact she was changing her outfit, during which she gave a shout out to Swift (the star of the night) saying “Hi Taylor… I’m not an attractive crier. Have a good evening.”
Kylie Minogue was honoured with the inaugural best pop dance recording for hit Padam Padam – the Australian star’s second Grammy.
Image: Phoebe Bridgers, from left, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, of boygenius accept the award for best rock performance “Not Strong Enough” during the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Highlighting the success of the night for female talent, indie supergroup Boygenius took three awards, with bandmember Phoebe Bridgers taking a fourth for her collaboration with SZA Ghost in the Machine.
Another notable win went to rapper Jay-Z who won the Dr Dre global impact award took his daughter Blue Ivy up onto the stage, as used the opportunity to take a swipe at the Recording Academy.
Image: Jay-Z and his daughter Blue Ivy. Pic: AP
He drew gasps when he chided the Grammy’s have previously neglected rap stars, before putting the spotlight on his wife, Beyonce, questioning how she’d won the most Grammy’s in history, but never won best album.
He joked, “Sorry, when I get nervous, I tell the truth”.
He finished by urging fellow artists “to keep showing up,” imploring, “Just in life, you’ve got to keep showing up. Just keep showing up.
Held at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles, the 66th annual ceremony was hosted by comedian Trevor Noah – his fourth consecutive year fronting the show.
Image: Joni Mitchell performing Both Sides Now. Pic: AP
There were a host of performances from living legends, with cultural icon Joni Mitchell making her Grammy debut aged 80.
With an impressive five-decade music career, and after overcoming a near-fatal brain aneurysm in 2015, she sang her 1966 hit Both Sides Now, sat in a golden armchair and accompanied by singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile on guitar.
Mitchell also took home the prize for best folk album. She previously won the Recording Academy lifetime achievement award in 2002.
Other veteran entertainers to perform included Stevie Wonder who paid tribute to singer Tony Bennet, Billy Joel and Tracy Chapman.
Image: Annie Lennox pays tribute to Sinead O’Connor. Pic: AP
Eurhythmics star Annie Lennox gave an emotional rendition of Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U during the In Memoriam section of the show, wearing a black suit and with a glittery black tear running from one eye.
Finishing the song, the 69-year-old singer brought politics to the fore, saying: “Artists for ceasefire, peace in the world,” appearing to refer to the ongoing Gaza-Hamas war.
Later in the show, Recording Academy The CEO Harvey Mason Jr spoke about the power of music to unite, calling out attacks at music venues including the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, the Manchester Arena in England, the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas and most recently the Supernova Music Festival for Love.
As he spoke, a string quartet of musicians of Palestinian, Israeli and Arab origin performed live, with Mason concluding: ” Now is the time for us, for humanity, to play together and to come together with empathy and with love.”
The 48-year-old activist and performer took home best rap album for his sixth studio album, Michael, while his track Scientists And Engineers featuring Andre 3000, Future And Eryn Allen Kane won best rap song and best rap performance.
A spokesperson from the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed a man had been arrested but did not give any further details.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.