Viola Davis Won A Grammy And Became An EGOT Winner

February 6, 2023 / Posted by:

Viola Davis won a Grammy for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording for her memoir, Finding Me. The 57-year-old actress can add the golden gramophone to her awards shelf, which is about to collapse from the weight of her Emmy, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe, six SAG Awards, Oscar, BET Award, Drama Desk Award, seven NAACP Image Awards, and two Tony Awards. Wait. WAIT. Emmy… Oscar… Tony… and now, Grammy?! EOTG! I mean, EGOT! Viola Davis is an EGOT winner!

When Viola got onstage to accept her Grammy, she was beaming. She told the audience that she wrote her memoir to honor “6-year-old Viola”, “her life, her joy, her trauma, everything.” Then she excitedly announced, “I just EGOT!” Everyone cheered as she thanked her publisher, her husband of nineteen years, Julius Tennon, and their 12-year-old daughter Genesis. Here’s Viola’s speech:

NBC News reports that Viola is the eighteenth EGOT winner in history (sorry, Barbra Streisand, we don’t count your non-competitive honorary Special Tony award). She’s the third Black woman and fourth Black person to receive this honor. The others are Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, and Whoopi Goldberg. Other EGOT-ers include Mel Brooks, Audrey Hepburn, Rita Moreno, and a bunch of composers and producers.

Viola won her Tony first, for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 2001’s King Hedley II. She won another Tony in 2010 for Best Leading Actress for playing Rose in the Broadway revival of Fences. Six years later, she reprised the same role in the Fences film adaptation and took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. The year before that, Viola won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for How to Get Away with Murder. 

After her win, Viola told Entertainment Tonight that her EGOT win made her “really emotional”, and her younger self would have been “very proud” of her accomplishments. When asked how she’d celebrate, Viola said she “may have some french fries and some sparkling wine. I’m a simple woman.” A simple woman who will suffer some post-Grammy heartburn:

Five years ago, Viola told Jimmy Kimmel that she wasn’t confident about her EGOT chances. Her exact words were, “that Grammy ain’t gonna happen, cuz I can’t sing.” Um, when has that stopped any singer in the history of the Grammys? I’m actually sad we missed out on a Viola Davis musical release. She would absolutely devour a Countess Luann Housewives-style single, a la “Chic, C’est La Vie”:

Pic: YouTube

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