Who says no one cares about the Grammys anymore? We’re about five days out from the ceremony, and there’s a decent chunk of people who apparently still have feelings, whether for or against, something Billie Eilish said on stage after winning Song of the Year for “Wildflower.” “No one is illegal on stolen land,” she said on Sunday night. “It’s really hard to know what to say and what to do right now. I feel really hopeful in this room and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting and our voices really do matter and the people matter. Fuck ICE, is all I wanna say.”
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Overall, not that radical of a statement—it’s not even the first time someone has said “fuck ICE” at an award show this season. But it did manage to razz Kevin O’Leary, the Shark Tank star who most recently appeared in Marty Supreme. “Half the people in politics that you piss off won’t buy your music anymore,” O’Leary said on Fox News on Wednesday. Going on the claim that Eilish didn’t take the advice of Ricky Gervais at a different award show, O’Leary continued, without a hint of irony, “I know her agents are going out of their minds. I mean, it’s the first lesson 101 for a celebrity. As you rise up, whether you’re a film star, music star, whatever—shut your mouth and just entertain.”
After that clip circulated, Mark Ruffalo came to Eilish’s defense. “Kevin O’Leary why don’t you STFU,” Ruffalo wrote on Threads yesterday evening. “It’s hilarious. You will go on any show and talk shit about any number of things and smugly expect us to listen to you, but you will dig into a real artist that dwarfs anything you dream of doing for actually saying something that resonates with 100’s of millions of people the world over. It’s astounding the fantasy double standard Kevin O’Leary lives in. You played yourself well in Marty Supreme.” Also standing up for Eilish was her brother and collaborator Finneas, who wrote, “Seeing a lot of very powerful old white men outraged about what my 24 year old sister said during her acceptance speech. We can literally see your names in the Epstein files.”
