Kim Petras Shares Moving Message After Historic 2023 Grammys Win

Oh-ee-oh-ee-oh Kim Petras took that Grammy hoe-ee-oh-ee-ome.

After making history at the 2023 ceremony as the first transgender woman to win in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category for her hit “Unholy” with Sam Smith, the German singer reflected on what the major moment meant to her. 

“Wow!” she told reporters backstage on Feb. 5. “All these years are going through my head of people saying I would be a niche artist because I’m transgender and my music would only ever play in gay clubs. And what’s wrong with that? I love gay clubs. They raised me. But anyways, now I’m nominated, I got a Grammy for making gay club music with my friend and that’s the best feeling in the world.” 

And Petras hopes her win drives change. 

“Honestly, I just think that people need to judge less,” she continued, “and I hope that there’s a future where gender and identity and all these labels don’t matter that much and where people can just be themselves and not get judged so hard and not be labeled so hard. I really hope for that because that was a big struggle for me growing up.”

The artist added, “And I hope that all the kids that saw this that, you know, are special, or different, or feel like they don’t belong, or like they can’t conform to the society and they don’t have a place in it feel inspired that, yes, you can be yourself and get rewarded for your talent rather than your gender or your sexuality.”