Harry Styles’ acceptance speech after he won the Grammy award for album of the year caused an uproar on social media Sunday night.
“I think on nights like tonight it’s important for us to remember there is no such thing as ‘best’ in music. I don’t think any of us sit in the studio making decisions on what is going to get us one of these,” Styles said, referring to the award in his hands, which he won for the album “Harry’s House.”
But it was the last sentence of his speech that riled up social media users, who took different interpretations of what he meant: “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often and this is so, so nice. Thank you very much,” Styles said, before handing the microphone off to his co-writers Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson.
Twitter users had some opinions on Styles’ win over the Beyoncé album “Renaissance,” as the loss made this the fourth time she did not get the album of the year award. Styles was up against Beyoncé and eight other artists, including Bad Bunny, Lizzo, Adele and Kendrick Lamar.
Some wondered what Styles meant by “people like me,” him being a white male artist nominated in the same category as women and artists of color.
Meanwhile, others hoped a Black artist would win the coveted award during Black History Month.
Others still rooted for their favorite artists, including Adele, Lizzo and Beyoncé, with some Beyoncé fans joking about an uprising against the Recording Academy.
Fans of Styles came to his defense and had their own interpretations of his speech ending, with some commenters acknowledging his beginnings on the reality show competition "The X Factor."
Many reminded Twitter users to be kind and supportive, no matter who won the album of the year award.
Despite the album of the year upset, Beyoncé fans also acknowledged a big milestone for the singer when she won four awards this year, breaking the record for most wins by any artist in Grammys history, with 32 awards so far.
