{"id":276516,"date":"2026-02-02T06:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/276516\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T06:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:53:13","slug":"billie-eilish-olivia-dean-and-bad-bunny-protest-with-grammy-speeches-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/276516\/","title":{"rendered":"Billie Eilish, Olivia Dean and Bad Bunny protest with Grammy speeches \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pop stars Billie Eilish, Olivia Dean and Bad Bunny have condemned US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers with their winners\u2019 speeches at the 2026 Grammy Awards.<\/p>\n

British singer Dean took home the best new artist award at the ceremony at Los Angeles\u2019s Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, while Eilish\u2019s Wildflower won song of the year and Bad Bunny\u2019s Debi Tirar Mas Fotos won album of the year.<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Dean called for immigrants to be celebrated (Jordan Strauss\/Invision\/AP) <\/p>\n

Accepting her award, US singer Eilish was joined on stage by her brother Finneas, with both wearing \u201cIce out\u201d pins, as she said: \u201cThank you so much, I can\u2019t believe this, everyone else in this category are so amazing, I love you so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so honoured every time I get to be in this room, and as grateful as I feel, I honestly don\u2019t feel like I need to say anything.<\/p>\n

\"Author<\/a>\"Cate<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBut that no one is illegal on stolen land\u2026 it\u2019s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I just, I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

After beating fellow British star Lola Young to best new artist, Dean used her speech to call for immigrants to be celebrated.<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Dean performs Man I Need (Chris Pizzello\/AP) (Chris Pizzello\/Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP) <\/p>\n

Becoming emotional after scooping the award, the Man I Need singer said: \u201cThank you, I never really imagined that I would be up here, let alone nominated, so thank you so much, I just want to say that an artist is really nothing without their team.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmily, my best friend, my manager, we\u2019ve been doing this for 10 years, so this is for you too, and my family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I want to say, I\u2019m up here as a granddaughter of an immigrant, I wouldn\u2019t be here (if it were not for immigration).<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I\u2019m a product of bravery, and I think those people deserve to be celebrated, so yeah, we\u2019re nothing without each other. Thank you so much, I love you, thank you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before winning album of the year, Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Martinez Ocasio, scooped best musica urbana album, and used his speech to call for Ice to leave US cities and ask for love.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cBefore I say thanks to god, I\u2019m going to say Ice out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not savages, we\u2019re not animals, we\u2019re not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say to the people, I know it\u2019s tough to know not to hate on these days, and I was thinking, sometimes\u2026 the hate get more powerful with more hate, the only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo please, we need to be different, if we fight, we have to do it with love, we don\u2019t hate them. We love our people, we love our family, and that\u2019s the way to do it, with love, don\u2019t forget that please. Thank you, thank you god.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bad Bunny delivered much of his speech in Spanish before saying he wanted to dedicate the award to \u201call the people that had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams\u201d in English.<\/p>\n

\"JustinJustin and Hailey Bieber both wore pins that said \u2018Ice Out\u2019 to the Grammys (AP) (Jordan Strauss\/Jordan Strauss\/Invision\/AP) <\/p>\n

Ice officers have been sent to US cities as part of President Donald Trump\u2019s mass deportation initiative, most notably in Minnesota and Minneapolis, where about 2,000 federal agents have been deployed.<\/p>\n

Officers have come under strong criticism over their aggressive approach. Most recently, Ice agents fatally shot two people on the streets of Minneapolis: Renee Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24.<\/p>\n

Singers Joni Mitchell and Kehlani, and Bon Iver\u2019s Justin Vernon were also among artists wearing \u201cIce out\u201d and \u201cBe Good\u201d pins at the annual ceremony.<\/p>\n

Vernon, 44, whose group Bon Iver is nominated for best alternative music album, said he wore a whistle as a tribute to the legal observers documenting the actions of federal agents in the streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a reason that music exists and it\u2019s to heal and to bring people together,\u201d he told The Associated Press. \u201cBut the real work are those observers on the on the ground in Minneapolis. We just want to shout them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kehlani, 30, said \u201cf*** Ice\u201d in her acceptance speech as she won her first Grammy for best R&B performance for Folded, and called for people to speak out against them.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, rap star Kendrick Lamar won big at the ceremony; he was the most nominated artist at the ceremony with nine nods, winning five, collecting record of the year for his song Luther, featuring R&B singer SZA.<\/p>\n

A humorous moment saw veteran singer Cher mistakenly call the rapper Luther Vandross, the late soul star who is actually sampled on the track, when handing out record of the year, having just won a lifetime achievement award herself.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the record of the year win, SZA said: \u201cI know that right now is a scary time, I know the algorithms tell us that it\u2019s so scary and all is lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been world wars, there\u2019s been plagues, and we have gone on, we can go on, we need each other, we need to trust each other, trust ourselves, trust your heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not governed by the government, we\u2019re governed by God, and I thank you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old also took home awards for best rap album for GNX, best rap song for TV Off featuring Lefty Gunplay, best melodic rap performance for Luther, and best rap performance for Chains & Whips with Clipse, Pusha T, Malice and Pharrell Williams.<\/p>\n

Pop superstar Lady Gaga, who was the second-most nominated artist with seven nods, took home best pop vocal album for her record Mayhem, having already won best dance pop recording and best remixed recording for Abracadabra and its Gesaffelstein remix.<\/p>\n

Performances during the night included Tyler, The Creator, who crashed a Ferrari F40 on stage while singing Sugar On My Tongue; Justin Bieber, praised for his return to the Grammys after four years away; and tributes paid to Ozzy Osbourne, D\u2019Angelo and Roberta Flack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pop stars Billie Eilish, Olivia Dean and Bad Bunny have condemned US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[22751,6438,321,93,21947,61,60,7488,6552,33350,1576,1577],"class_list":["post-276516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bad-bunny","tag-billie-eilish","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-grammy-awards","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-lady-gaga","tag-olivia-dean","tag-showbiz","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}