Read Chappell Roan’s full 2025 Grammys speech

“Labels we got you, but do you got us?”

February 02, 2025
Read Chappell Roan’s full 2025 Grammys speech Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Chappell Roan took home Best New Artist at the 2025 Grammy awards show on Sunday and used her speech to advocate for something important: healthcare and living wages for musicians.

Reading from a notebook on stage, the singer called out record labels and "the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists" and shared her own experience losing healthcare after getting dropped from her label right before the pandemic. "It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system, and so dehumanized to not have health insurance. And if my label would have prioritized artist health, I could've been provided care by a company I was giving everything to."

In 2020, Chappell Roan was dropped from her previous label Atlantic Records. While independent, she released some of her biggest songs "Pink Pony Club," "My Kink is Karma," "Femininomenon," through producer Dan Nigro's imprint Amusement Records. She later signed with Island Records in 2023, and released her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess in September 2023.

Everyone from RAYE to Taylor Swift, and Sabrina Carpenter were seen listening attentively as she spoke, and she received a standing ovation following her speech.

Roan also brought "Pink Pony Club" to the Grammys and was up for six awards. Read her full speech below.

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Thank you to my fellow nominees whose music got me through this past year. Brat was the best night of my life this year. [...] Thank you all who listened and who got me here today, Dan and Island Records, Amusement Records, my friends and my family, and above all my Papa Chappell, who I named myself after.

I told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and healthcare, especially to developing artists.

Because I got signed so young, I got signed as a minor, and when I got dropped I had zero job experience under my belt and like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance. It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanized to not have healthcare. And if my label would have prioritized artist health, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to. So record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection. Labels, we got you, but do you got us?"

Read Chappell Roan’s full 2025 Grammys speech