Fighting back tears, Victoria Monét took to one of the biggest stages in the world for a moment that, at 34, she thought was never going to actually arrive.
”My roots have been growing underneath the ground, unseen, for so long,” the emotional R&B and pop singer-songwriter – who had walked the Grammys red carpet in a $250,000 Bulgari necklace, another sign she’d finally made it – said after being named as Best New Artist by Samara Joy.
“I feel like today I’m finally sprouting above ground.”
Watch the video above.
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Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan‘s nominations for Best New Artist at the 2025 Grammys may have sparked outrage over what, exactly, a new artist is, but Monét had been sounding the alarm for years before she presented the Good Luck, Babe! songstress with her gong.
The Nightmares & Lullabies musician was, after all, at least 15 years into her career when she was nominated for the controversial award category in November 2023.
“To be nominated for best new artist says a lot, because I’m new, but I’m not,” she told The Guardian in December 2023, one week after Grammys nominations were announced. “I’ve just been working on it for a really long time.”
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Case in point: in the four months between nominations being revealed – she was the second-most-nominated artist that year with seven nods, behind SZA‘s nine – and the February 2024 ceremony, she was not invited to perform at the event. (Carpenter and Roan notably both performed at the 2025 Grammys).
“I don’t want to vilify anyone, because it’s almost like ignorance rather than an act of malice – whoever was in charge just wasn’t aware, and now, hopefully, they are,” she told Dazed ahead of the 2024 Grammys.
“Everything comes in due time.”
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Monét said performing at the Grammys would be ”another one of those milestones that I’m going to appreciate so much more when it happens”. She finally achieved it in 2025.
So, who is Victoria Monét, and why did it take her so long to get her flowers?
Inside Victoria Monét’s years-long battle to break out
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1989, Monét knew she wanted to be a performer from a young age, so much so that she begged her mother to change their home address so she could attend performing arts school Sheldon High School in Sacramento, California.
At 17, Monét started writing songs, and she toured all over California with dance group Boogie Monstarz.
Three years later in 2009, after saving up $US4000 (approx. $6300), she moved to Los Angeles and signed her first record deal with girl group Purple Reign.
Monét thought she’d made it – but by 2010, Purple Reign had been dropped by their label, and it all fell apart.
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“There were times I was singing in front of In-N-Out [Burger] with the girl group and a cup, getting people to put dollars in,” she told The Guardian of the aftermath, which she says was when she was “dead broke”.
To put food on the table, she pivoted to songwriting, and for the next 14 years, she wrote some of Selena Gomez, Blackpink, Chloe x Halle, Fifth Harmony, Chris Brown, Jhene Aiko, Brandy and Ariana Grande‘s biggest hits.
“I was still doing music for myself, but I couldn’t dedicate as much time. It was the way to make ends meet, I was just doing what I had to do,” she told The Guardian.
That duck and weave for the sake of financial security, however, put an unforeseen obstacle in Monét’s path – the more she became part of the public consciousness thanks to her work as a songwriter (you have Monét to thank for Grande’s Dangerous Woman and thank u, next), the less she was recognised for her own albums.
“If female vocalists sound too similar to the artists they’re writing for it gets complicated,” she told The Guardian of one of the reasons she thought this could be.
”People aren’t able to differentiate you from the work you’ve written for others.”
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Although her hits shot other artists up into the stratosphere while she was waiting for the spotlight to turn her way, as she told Vulture in August 2023, “I don’t necessarily have regrets.”
“As much as I was ready the first year I moved to L.A. to be an artist, it wasn’t the time. It’s just part of my story. Everything that I was doing was necessary.”
One month later, despite the critical and commercial success of her Grammy-winning Jaguar II, she alleged on X (formerly Twitter) that MTV told her team it was “too early in [her] story” to perform at the VMAs.
It made her victories at the Grammys six months later – in addition to Best New Artist, she was the first Black woman in the show’s then 66-year history to win Best Engineered Album – even sweeter.
“I had to wait for this big moment, and when I say ‘wait,’ I don’t mean sitting on my hands – I had to climb up a hill for a really long time. It’s giving Mount Everest,” Monét told Cosmopolitan.
“To be honest, people are treating me a little bit different,” she later told The Hollywood Reporter through laughter in March 2024.
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“I’m not going to lie. There’s been some change in energy, which is cool,” she continued. “I’m going to take it, but for the most part, I’m just really trying to focus, keep my head down, keep working and take advantage of all the opportunities that are coming now.”
What also made her Grammys sweep particularly emotional was the fact that she shared it with her daughter.
Hazel Monét Gaines – born in February 2021 to Monét and her ex-boyfriend John Gaines – became the youngest Grammy nominee in history thanks to her laughter featuring on Hollywood, which was nominated for Best Traditional R&B Performance.
Monét’s hit On My Mama, which was released as part of her mammoth Jaguar II album, is also dedicated to Hazel.
“It’s really been a sacrifice, because every time I was working on it, I was away from my daughter, which made me feel like when I was with her everything shut off,” she told Vulture.
“I’m really not trying to multitask. I wanted to teach her things. I know that when she grows up she’ll appreciate this, because I wanted to provide a life for her that was different from mine and different from my mum’s.”
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