Zayn Malik slams the Grammys: ‘F—k the Grammys and everyone associated’

The Weeknd isn’t the only person that’s not loving the Recording Academy this year. Zayn Malik is joining the “Blinding Lights” singer to claim that the Grammy Awards are rigged unless you “send gifts.”

“F—k the Grammys and everyone associated. Unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations,” Malik tweeted. “Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.”

At first, it was unclear what sparked Malik’s Twitter reaction a few days ahead of the 2021 Grammy awards show on Sunday. Many of his fans pointed out that the singer didn’t have a release that could have been eligible this year. His latest album, No One Is Listening, was released in January but the window for eligibility for the 2021 Grammy Awards closed at the end of September.

Zayn Deserves Better started to trend on Twitter after Malik slammed the Grammys, but some people also pointed out his album's ineligibility.

Zayn returned to Twitter to clarify that his tweet about the Grammys wasn’t “personal or about eligibility.” Instead, he said he was concerned, “about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency of the nomination process and the space that creates and allows favoritism, racism, and netwokring [sic] politics to influence the voting process.”

Malik hasn’t had the best history with the Recording Academy. One Direction was never nominated for an award during their time together as a group. In 2017, Malik was denied a Best New Artist nomination for the 59th Annual Grammy Awards because he was once in the boy band, despite the fact he embarked on a solo career with his debut album Mind of Mine and his single “Pillowtalk” debuting on the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

“This was actually pretty clear cut given the international success of One Direction. It’s been a few years since Zayn Malik came to prominence as a member of that group, making him ineligible for the best new artist category this year,” Bill Freimuth, senior vice president of awards at the Recording Academy, said at the time.

The closest Malik has gotten to a Grammy nom was in 2018 when Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and Sam Dew were nominated for Malik and Swift’s collab song “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.” The song was nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media after being featured in Fifty Shades Darker. Malik was left off the nomination, but the song lost to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “How Far I’ll Go” for Moana.  

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Malik is not alone when it comes to calling out the Recording Academy. Many celebrities have done the same this year, including The Weeknd, Drake, Justin Bieber and Halsey. 

In January, The Weeknd told Billboard that his lack of Grammy nominations this year "kind of hit me out of nowhere ... I felt things. I don't know if it was sadness or anger. I think it was just confusion. I just wanted answers."

"We did everything right, I think," he added. "I'm not a cocky person. I'm not arrogant. People told me I was going to get nominated. The world told me. Like, 'This is it, this is your year.' We were all very confused."

The Weeknd said he has three Grammys, "which mean nothing to me now, obviously." Ouuu, ouch! 

The Weeknd had an extremely successful year last year (all 2020 jokes aside). He won three big awards at the 2020 American Music Awards, and he went on to play the Super Bowl halftime show this year, but was still surprisingly missing from the list of Grammy noms even though his hit "Blinding Lights" and chart-topping album After Hours were totally eligible. 

He took to Twitter in November and said, "The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency..."

Shortly after the Grammy nominations were announced last year, Drake shared his thoughts about the awards show and The Weeknd's snub. "I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artists that exist now and the ones that come after."

“I said @theweeknd was a lock for either album or song of the year along with countless other reasonable assumptions and it just never goes that way,” Drake continued. “This is a great time for somebody to start something new that we can build up over time and pass on to the generations to come.”

Justin Bieber, who was nominated in four categories, announced that he *actually* thought his album Changes should have been considered R&B. "I am very meticulous and intentional about my music. With that being said, I set out to make an R&B album. Changes was and is an R&B album. It is not being acknowledged as an R&B album which is very strange to me." The album was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album but Bieber "feels weird" that it isn't in the R&B category because "it is undeniably, unmistakably an R&B Album!" (His words... not ours).

Halsey shared a statement on her Instagram story a few days after the Grammy noms were announced. "The Grammys are an elusive process. It can often be about behind the scenes private performances, knowing the right people, campaigning through the grapevine, with the right handshakes and 'bribes' that can be just ambiguous enough to pass as 'not-bribes.'"

The 63rd Grammys Ceremony will take place in Los Angeles on Sunday and we think it's safe to say that The Weeknd and Malik will not be tuning in.

BEFORE YOU GO: The Grammys announce their full lineup of performers

[video_embed id='2155981']BEFORE YOU GO: The Grammys announce their full lineup of performers[/video_embed]