Why Selena Gomez Skipped the Grammys

Selena Gomez was up for her first-ever Grammy nomination for Best Latin Pop Album this year—but she did not end up attending the ceremony.

While Gomez did not directly speak on her no-show, it was announced before the ceremony began that she had lost out to fellow nominee Alex Cuba (for his 2021 album, Mendó). The nomination still marks a significant milestone in Gomez's music career—particularly given that the singer expressed her wish to potentially quit music just last year. "I want to give it one last try before I maybe retire music," she said in April 2021.

Gomez's Best Latin Pop Album nomination was thanks to her widely successful Spanish EP, Revelación, which hit No. 1 on Billboard's Top Latin Albums Chart. In addition to Cuba, her fellow nominees included Pablo Alborán (Vértigo), Paula Arenas (Mis Amores), Ricardo Arjona (Hecko a la Antigua), and Camilo (Mis Manos).

The EP, sung fully in Spanish, is all about embracing her Mexican heritage, per Gomez, and features big-name Puerto Rican artists of the genre—Rauw Alejandro and Myke Towers—as well as Grammy-nominated Puerto Rican producer Marco "Tainy" Másis.

While the inspiration behind the album was catalyzed by her 2018 song with Ozuna and Cardi B, "Taki Taki," she's had plans for the all-Spanish project long before then. "I have been talking about doing an all-Spanish project for the last 10 years and for one reason or another, it didn't come together," Gomez told GRAMMY.com last March. "I am thankful I waited though because it would have been a completely different project 10 years ago. Some of the music I worked on the last couple of years kind of naturally led to the timing feeling right."

Gomez opened up to ELLE in August 2021 about the creative process behind the album and the challenge of singing in Spanish. "I think speaking in Spanish is a lot easier than singing," she said. "I made sure that I didn’t look like a fool."

"I focused so hard on making sure that the language I was speaking, and the way I was speaking it, was authentic. I wanted it to exude love—to talk about pain, but in a way that was confident," she added.

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