Chappell Roan is officially the Best New Artist at the 2025 Grammys. But she didn’t use her time accepting the prestigious award to draw any further attention to her win. Instead, the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer used her moment onstage to call out record labels for not providing emerging artists with livable wages.
Wearing an Acne Studios dress and reading aloud from the journal in her hands, she discussed her personal experience getting dropped from Atlantic Records in 2020, mentioning how she couldn’t afford health insurance as she searched for a job. “If my label would have prioritized artists’ health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to,” she said.
Read her remarks below:
“Hello! Thank you to my fellow nominees, whose music got me through this past year. Brat was the best night of my life this year. My hat’s going to fall—it’s going to be OK. Thank you all who listened to get me here today...
I told myself if I ever won a Grammy, and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels and the industry, profiting millions of dollars off of artists, would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists.
Because I got signed so young—I got signed as a minor—and when I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt and, like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance. It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanized to not have health [care]. And if my label would have prioritized artists’ health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to.
So, record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection. Labels, we got you, but do you got us?”
Tonight marks Roan’s first time attending the Grammys. The singer is up for the ceremony’s prestigious Big Four awards: Record of the Year (“Good Luck, Babe!”), Album of the Year (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess), Song of the Year (“Good Luck, Babe!”), and Best New Artist. Additionally, she is nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance (“Good Luck, Babe!”) and Best Pop Vocal Album (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess).
She also performed earlier in the show, giving a dazzling rendition of “Pink Pony Club.” Days before the show, Roan wrote on Instagram that she “love[s] the performance we’re preparing for you all. And girl no matter what, just know when I’m up onstage, all I’m really feeling in my heart is love to the queer community especially those in places where it is unsafe to be yourself.”
On January 19, Roan spoke with BBC about the cost of standing up for herself amid her newfound fame. “I think, actually, I’d be more successful if I was OK wearing a muzzle,” she said with a laugh. “If I were to override more of my basic instincts, where my heart is going, ‘Stop, stop, stop, you’re not OK,’ I would be bigger. I would be way bigger... And I would still be on tour right now.”
Roan prioritized her mental health in her decision not to tour more. She shared the piece of advice her grandfather gave her that she has used “in every move I make with my career.” She explained, “There are always options. So when someone says, ‘Do this concert because you’ll never get offered that much money ever again,’ it’s like, who cares? If I don’t feel like doing this right now, there are always options. There is not a scarcity of opportunity. I think about that all the time.”
