Amazingly, riding a giant pink pony wasn’t the biggest talking point of Chappel Roan’s Grammys.

Not only did she win a gong, she used her award to call for better treatment of artists:

“Thank you to my fellow nominees whose music got me through this past year. ‘Brat’ was the best night of my life this year. Thank you all who listened to get me here today. Dan and Island Records, Amusement Records, my friends and my family, and, above all, my Papa Chappell, who I named myself after.

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 in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists offer a liveable wage and healthcare, 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 a 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 dehumanised to not have health[care]. If my label would have prioritised 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 liveable wage and health insurance and protection. Labels, we got you, but do you got us?

Thank you.”