After taking home the most awards at the 66th Grammys on Sunday night, Phoebe Bridgers responded to a press room question about women in rock ‘n roll by sending a sharp jab at a former Recording Academy CEO who once said women in music needed to “step up” to win awards.
“I have something to say about women,” Bridgers said, standing alongside her Boygenius bandmates Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker.
“The ex-president of the Recording Academy, Neil Portnow, said that if women want to be nominated and win Grammys that they should step up. He’s also being accused of sexual violence. And to him I’d like to say I know you’re not dead yet, but when you are, rot in piss.”
The 29-year old’s remarks were in response to comments made by former Recording Academy CEO Neil Portnow in 2018, who was attempting to speak out about the “brick walls” faced by female musicians and the mounting #GrammysSoMale controversy, only to end up blaming them for their lack of recognition in the industry.
“I think it has to begin with women who have the creativity in their hearts and their souls who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, who want to be producers, who want to be part of the industry on an executive level, to step up,” Portnow said in 2018.
“Because I think they would be welcome. I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face, but I think it’s really a combination. Us as an industry making the welcome mat very obvious, creating mentorships, creating opportunities not only for women but all people who want to be creative and really paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists who feel like they can do anything, they can say anything.”
Although he later issued an apology (“I regret that I wasn’t as articulate as I should have been”) the damage had been done. Female artists and executives, including Kelly Clarkson and Vanessa Carlton, campaigned to have Portnow step down from his role.
On Sunday, Bridgers was among the several female artists who took home multiple awards, including SZA, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. Bridgers took home four awards — three with her three-piece group Boygenius.
Boygenius won Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for their song Not Strong Enough, as well as the award for Best Alternative Music Album for their debut record, The Record. Bridgers also won a Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for featuring in SZA’s song Ghost in the Machine.
Portnow’s comments from 2018 were made in a year when almost no female artists won in the top categories. Lorde was the only woman nominated for album of the year, and even attended the awards that year wearing a poem on her gown about political dissenters.
During the height of #GrammysSoMale, Pink penned a note and shared it on X (formerly Twitter).
“Women in music don’t need to ‘step up’ — women have been stepping since the beginning of time,” she expressed. “Stepping up, and also stepping aside women OWNED music this year. They’ve been KILLING IT. And every year before this.”
Portnow stepped down from his Academy position in 2019, after holding the title as the longest-serving president in Recording Academy history.
Last November, an unnamed female musician filed a lawsuit against Portnow, accusing him of a sexual assault in 2018 in New York City, and against the Recording Academy for negligence. A spokesperson for Portnow responded to the accusations, saying in an email that they were “completely false”.