Beyoncé Reflects on Lemonade in Grammys Acceptance Speech: ‘It’s Vital That We Learn From the Past’
Beyoncé is known for using her fame to bring light to social injustice, such as the representation of black women and gender equality. Her Lemonade short film even includes appearances from the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Additionally, she made a powerful Black Lives Matter statement at the 2016 MTV VMAs, walking the red carpet with the three women, as well as the mother of Oscar Grant. Beyoncé also made a humanitarian trip to Haiti back in 2015, and aims to make the world a more beautiful place through her BeyGood foundation.
Beyoncé followed up her jaw-dropping performance at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards with an acceptance speech that was just as good.
Taking the stage to accept the win for best urban contemporary album, for Lemonade, Beyoncé was full of gratitude.
“Thank you to the Grammy voters for this incredible honor, thank you everyone who worked so hard to beautifully capture the profundity of deep Southern culture,” she said, glittering as gold and having swapped her crown for a veil.
“I thank God for my family, my wonderful husband, my beautiful daughter my fans for bringing me so much happiness and support,” she continued.
I was about 2 feet from Beyoncé when she won for Lemonade. Yup. That happened. I said goddess. She said thank you. And now I'm preg w twins.
— Gina Rodriguez (@HereIsGina) February 13, 2017
Then the 35-year-old pop star, who recently announced she is expecting twins with husband Jay Z, turned serious.
“We all experience pain and loss and often we become inaudible,” she said. “My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that will give a voice of our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable.”
Check out PEOPLE’s full 2017 Grammys coverage.
As she explained, “It’s important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty, so they can group up in a world where they look in the mirror — first through their own families, as well as the news, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the White House and the Grammys — and see themselves and have no doubt that they’re beautiful, intelligent and capable.”
“This is something I want for every child of every race,” she concluded, “and I feel it’s vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes.”
The Recording Academy quickly hailed her words as “inspiring.”
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The mother-to-be returned to the stage to accept her award not long after wowing the audience (in the theater and watching at home) with a powerfully sensory performance that blended spoken-word poetry and visual effects with two of her latest songs, as well as a custom Roberto Cavalli dress adorned in gold embellishments and crystals.
Beyoncé earned nine nominations at this year’s Grammys, including record of the year, song of the year and album of the year. Even before the awards show started, she took home the best music video award for “Formation.”
