Kobe Bryant Tributes Dominate Grammy Broadcast
by EG
The evening was meant to honor music stars, but the unexpected death of a celebrity athlete changed the plans. The Grammys telecast was was dominated by tributes to Kobe Bryant through the evening, with the celebration of musicians taking a back seat to the celebration of the sports star who played his game in the building where the awards ceremony was being held. Read on for details.
The 2020 Grammys kicked off with a tribute to late basketball great Kobe Bryant, who died Sunday in a helicopter crash.
Lizzo, clad in a sparkly black gown, performed to start the show, announcing, "Tonight is for Kobe," before launching into "Cuz I Love You" off of her album of the same name. She later transitioned into her hit "Truth Hurts."
Grammys host Alicia Keys then paid tribute to Bryant at the top of the show, after Lizzo's performance, somberly addressing the audience and saying that everyone was feeling "crazy sadness" after the loss of "a hero" in Bryant.
"We're literally standing here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built," she said to applause from the well-heeled crowd at the Lakers' longtime home of the Staples Center. She urged the audience to hold Bryant and the other victims of the crash in their hearts and told them to share their strength and support with the families of the victims. Then Keys was joined by Boyz II Men to perform a bit of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday," ending by saying "We love you, Kobe."
She concluded by arguing that she and others at the Grammys will "do what we're here to do."
"We're going to bring it all together and make sure we're celebrating the most powerful energy, the one thing that has the power to bring all of us together and that's music," she said. "It's the most healing thing in the world"
Later, while playing the piano and serenading the audience, she addressed something others had referenced about Bryant in The Grammys' red carpet preshows: how much he loved music.
"I’m looking forward to being here together with all of us again celebrating this music," Keys said. "Because I know how much Kobe loved music. I know how much he loved music. So we’ve got to make this a celebration in his honor, you know? He would want us to keep the vibrations high. Music is that one language we can all speak. It doesn’t matter where we’re from. We all understand it."
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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