Zayn Malik, former One Direction member and recent father, isn't known to be a big sharer. So when he recently went off on The Grammy Awards, which air on Sunday, he definitely made himself heard.
“Fuck the grammys and everyone associated," Malik tweeted on 9th March. "Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.”
As you can probably guess, Malik wasn't nominated for a 2021 Grammy. The 28-year-old singer's third album, Nobody Is Listening, missed the eligibility period (1st September 2019 to 31st August 2020) when it was released in January 2021, as well as its first single, "Better," which dropped a month after the deadline. In fact, he hasn't been nominated ever. His 2018 collaboration with Taylor Swift, "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" (nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media) was credited to songwriters Swift, Jack Antonoff and Sam Dew, and because of his stint in One Direction, he wasn't eligible for the Best New Artist award in 2017.
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Fuck the grammys and everyone associated. Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.
— zayn (@zaynmalik) March 9, 2021
Malik joins a sacred tradition of calling out the Grammys, a show that has never had a good reputation among critics and the public for, well, getting things right — especially when it comes to women and BIPOC artists.
After massively snubbing The Weeknd for his album After Hours this year, he tweeted "The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency...."
Drake, longtime Grammys hater, came to The Weeknd's defence on social media, saying that the show "may no longer matter" anyway, as there's always been a "disconnect" between the voters and the zeitgeist.
“I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artists that exist now and the ones that come after,” Drake wrote. “It’s like a relative you keep expecting to fix up but they just can’t change their ways.”
Perhaps Malik should save his confectionary for someone more deserving.
The 63rd annual Grammy Awards will air live on 14th March at 8 pm ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS, Paramount+, and Grammy.com. There is no UK broadcast.