Revenge is a dish best served cold with a Grammy on the side.
While performing her song “Flowers” for the very first time on television at the 2024 Grammy Awards, swapping her Barbarella-inspired red carpet outfit for an even more daring look, pop icon Miley Cyrus improvised new lyrics to celebrate a career milestone.
“Started to cry, but then remembered I — I just won my first Grammy!” she exclaimed before launching into the chorus of her #1 hit, which spent eight weeks in the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 and more than 25 weeks at the top of the adult contemporary chart.
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Near the beginning of the telecast, Cyrus accepted the award for best pop vocal performance from presenter Mariah Carey. Later, in a viral video, Cyrus was seen backstage celebrating her win while being visibly gobsmacked that she got to meet the multi-Grammy winning artist and self-declared Queen of Christmas.
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Ultimately, Cyrus bookended the 2024 ceremony with Grammys wins, taking home record of the year late in the night for “Flowers.” In a playful but heartfelt acceptance speech, she made a special point to thank her “main gays,” presumably her stylists and makeup artists, saying that they were responsible for “how good” she looked.
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Though Cyrus is a Disney star and has been in the music industry for over a decade, she hasn’t always been beloved by the Recording Academy, the body that distributes Grammy awards. She scored six nominations at the 2024 ceremony for “Flowers,” her Brandi Carlile duet “Thousand Miles,” as well as its parent album Endless Summer Vacation. But previously, she had only been nominated twice. In 2014, she received a single nomination for Bangerz in the best pop vocal album category and in 2022, she received a nomination for album of the year for Lil Nas X’s Montero, on which she was credited as a featured artist and co-writer.
Cyrus previously delivered one of the queerest performances in Grammys history when the pansexual singer joined fellow Grammy winner Elton John to sing his song “Tiny Dancer” at the 2018 ceremony.
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