Dua Lipa called out the former Grammy president, Neil Portnow for his controversial comments in 2018. He had made a remark about the lack of female winners at the award show, where he suggested that it was all down to women needing to “step up”.
In the ceremony , after Dua Lipa won the Best New Artist, she indirectly called out Neil, and said “I thought I was going to forget everyone that I felt like I wanted to thank, it was so crazy,” she added, “One thing I knew for sure was just how honoured I was to be nominated alongside so many women, especially after all the kind of gender inequality things that were happening in music.”
Portnow later apologized for his insensitive, sexist remarks. He dismissed it as a poor choice of words rather than a poor choice of misogynistic thought.
Dua was quoted saying “That was one thing that I knew I wanted to talk about, if in case something happened. I knew that was such an almost monumental moment, seeing so many women in the Best New Artist category.” And so, unlike previous years, this year’s Grammy Award Ceremony has a phenomenal 82% increase in the number of women winners!