Grammys Teleprompter Sign Sparks Outrage

The 2024 Grammy Awards took place on Sunday night and, while it created a lot of buzz, the ceremony is now facing backlash after videos went viral of the teleprompter during an award winner's speech.

Victoria Monét took home the trophy for Best New Artist after releasing her debut album Jaguar II in 2023. Monét claimed victory over the seven other nominees, including Gracie Abrams, Fred Again.., Ice Spice, Jelly Roll, Coco Jones, Noah Kahan, and the War and Treaty. In recent years, the award has gone to Olivia Rodrigo, Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish, and Dua Lipa.

"Thank you guys so much. Thank you to the champagne servers of tonight; that's my first thank you," Monét began, before saying: "Thank you to The Recording Academy voting members. This is because of you guys, you guys pressed that button you were in your emails, thank you so much. Thank you to my mom, a single mom raising this really bad girl. Thank you so much."

Monét also described the "15-year pursuit" she embarked on after moving to Los Angeles in 2009 for her career before adding: "My roots have been growing underneath ground, unseen, for so long, and I feel like today I'm sprouting, finally above ground."

While people loved her emotional speech, people online have realized that, during it, a teleprompter was telling her to "Please Stop"—and people aren't happy. Newsweek contacted The Recording Academy and a spokesperson for Monet for comment via email Tuesday.

TikTok user @martialkat shared a video of a portion of Monét's speech at the Grammys that showed the teleprompter reading "Please Stop" before going on to flash: "Wrap It Up." At the time of writing, the clip had more than 7.3 million views.

"I just want to tell a quick story. I know this slot is one minute so I'll hurry up," Monét can be heard saying in the background.

People have taken to the comments to express their disgust at the singer being told to wrap it up.

"The amount of labor, time, effort, dedication, blood sweat and tears it takes to get to this very moment...To have a sign flashing Wrap It Up...Is insane," one person wrote.

"They need to cut some of the filler stuff and allow longer speeches in my opinion. Winning a Grammy is a big deal, let people have their moment," commented another.

"And then the music pushing her out," a third posted alongside crying emojis.

However, not everyone agreed, as one person wrote: "no she fr [for real] needed to wrap it up."

Social-media user @jimmyoutsold posted a snippet of @martialkat's video to X (formerly Twitter) and wrote in the caption: "this is just disrespectful as hell idc [I don't care]." At the time of writing, it had been viewed more than 6.7 million times.

People also took to the comment section of this post to share their annoyance over what was put on the teleprompter.

One person posted that "it's really infuriating how rude they are to the artists."

Another asked "why give an artist an award and invite them to speak if you're gonna cut them off as soon as they start?"

However, others wrote why such a thing is necessary. "Huh? She was literally over time. It was literally her fault for not paying attention, staying on time etc. Of course they cut her off? As they've done to many others before her," one X user wrote.

Another added: "to play devil's advocate. i worked in a newscast before in the control room, and there is a specific time slot for every segment that you CANNOT exceed. for segments that are out of your control (like if a celeb storms the stage or something), you can't control it and you're asking your producer what to do. however, segments such as speeches, you can control. so keeping that time is important."

This was not Monét's first win of the night as her album Jaguar II won Best Engineered Album and Best R&B Album earlier in the day during the Grammys Premiere Ceremony.