The most memorable Grammy moments: From JLo in THAT Versace dress to Lady Gaga hatching from an egg and Jay-Z’s verbal swipe

Undisputedly the biggest night in music – the 67th Grammy awards is set to take hold today and will welcome some of the globe’s biggest entertainers and VIPs.

While fans look forward to the glittering ceremony in Los Angeles, California, it’s the event’s penchant for shocking moments and crazy antics that really gets people talking .

We’ll never forget 2011’s edition which saw Lady Gaga arriving in a human-sized egg, neither how Adele memorably flubbed a George Michael tribute in 2017.

Nor can we erase the controversial night Chris Brown and Rihanna turned up together just four years after they both missed the Grammys.

And what would the mighty night be without scandalous fashion statements like Jennifer Lopez’s iconic plunging Versace silk dress in 2000 or Madonna’s cheeky bottom flash at the 2015 awards. 

Meanwhile last year Jay-Z shockingly attacked the respected accolade for failing to give his wife Beyoncé the best album award, despite her 32 wins in other categories.

From wardrobe malfunctions to on-stage gaffes and wild moments, it’s clear the event is famed for more than just music.

Here, FEMAIL takes a look back at the most outrageous incidents to ever occur at the premiere show…

Lady Gaga hatches at the Grammys!

While Lady Gaga is no stranger to drama, she ramped it up to epic proportions at the 2011 ceremony.

The flamboyant fashionista’s entrance to the Grammys has gone down in history as one of the wildest ever – and it all started with an egg.

She arrived on the red carpet in a resplendent human-sized sphere, signalling metaphorical rebirth before a performance of her monster hit, Born This Way. 

Her look was equally dramatic as she donned a sheer gold skirt and cropped top, with her hair tied up in a style reminiscent of Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour era. 

She incidentally bagged three gongs that night, marking it both a professional and fashion milestone for the superstar. 

Lady Gaga later claimed to have spent an incredible 72 hours inside the enormous egg, an act she described as a ‘creative embryonic incubation’ that gave her time to ‘think about the meaning’ of her Grammys performance.

Jay-Z’s speech 

It’s rare to catch the queen of pop-RnB blushing, but that’s exactly what happened when her husband Jay-Z slammed the Grammys last year.

After the Brooklyn-born rapper accepted his Dr. Dre Global Impact Award for  contribution to the music industry, he condemned the establishment for failing to honour Beyoncé with the best album gong.

With his 12-year-old daughter Blue Ivy by his side and wife Beyoncé looking on from their table in the audience, the mogul ironically said there were more important things in life than winning Grammys – before pointing out that his superstar wife had never won best album. 

‘I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year,’ said the rapstar. 

‘So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that. The most Grammys; never won Album of the Year. That doesn’t work’.

When the camera cut to Queen B she appeared shy and apprehensive and was seemingly blushing.

Jay-Z has been nominated for 88 competitive Grammy Awards, winning 24 of them. Six of his nominations have been for Album of the Year.

Beyonce has also been nominated for 88 competitive Grammy Awards, winning 32 of them. Like her husband, Beyonce has been nominated six times for Album of the Year, but never won.

Jennifer Lopez’s unforgettable dress

The multi-hyphenate performer’s split from Ben Affleck keeps her in the headlines 24/7, but in 2000 she had tongues wagging over for something else.

A stunning 31-year-old Jennifer Lopez coupled with an iconic Versace dress set in motion the most talked about moment to occur at the 43rd Grammys – and this was before the ceremony had even started. 

The internet exploded when Jennifer Lopez walked the red carpet in a plunging palm leaf print Versace dress that showcased her incredible figure.

She looked confident as ever in the stunning ensemble. 

Images of Jennifer at the event were downloaded from the GRAMMY website 642,917 times in just 24 hours, inspiring the creation of Google Images.

It caused such a stir that it was reimagined as a pair of sneakers two decades later, meanwhile replicas of the dress are available online for up to $7,250 on vintage re-sale sites.

The plunging green and sheer dress also cemented Donatella Versace’s credentials as a designer in her own right following the shooting death of her famous brother Gianni in 1997. 

Adele’s George Michael tribute

The 16-time Grammy winner and darling songstress could do no wrong – until the night she flubbed a tribute to late British legend George Michael.

In 2017 the singer took the stage for a pared-down version of George Michael’s 1996 hit Fast Love, but disaster struck when she accidentally messed up the lyrics.

The start was foreboding; the performance launched with a wobbly start which soon transcended into profanity live on TV – forcing a restart of the tribute from scratch.

The Someone Like You hitmaker sang the uncensored version of the line ‘all this bulls**t conversation,’, which completely threw her off, and she called for a re-do. 

As a close up of her face was shown on screen, the distraught singer then clearly muttered the word ‘f***’.

Luckily the crowd drummed up support for the darling singer, prompting her to start from the top; this time acing the dissonant, slowed-down version of the Wham legend’s disco track. 

A production source told People magazine that Adele was ‘super nervous’ before the show even began.

‘She was super nervous going into tonight. She cleared out the stadium for her rehearsal but it went really well,’ they told the publication.

Rihanna and Chris Brown attend the Grammys together years after brutal assault

The most shocking incident of their lives preceded the 2009 Grammy awards; Rihanna and Chris Brown were due to appear together but news of a violent assault on the Barbadian songstress by the music bad boy derailed that plan indefinitely.

Court papers revealed sickening details of an attack which left the Diamonds singer’s face battered and bruised by a then 19-year-old Chris Brown.

Fans were left shell-shocked when the stars were pictured arm in arm at the Staples Center just four years later, with Rihanna wearing what appeared to be a diamond ‘engagement ring’ on her wedding finger.

A wide grin on his face, the notorious star hugged his then-girlfriend as she leaned lovingly against his shoulder as it appeared all had been forgotten.

Following the brutal incident in 2009, Chris plead guilty to one count of felony assault and served probation for the crime.

Rihanna found it hard to move on from her first love, breaking down in tears when quizzed about their volatile relationship on Oprah’s Next Chapter in 2012.

She said: ‘I lost my best friend – like everything I knew switched in a night, and I couldn’t control that.

‘So, I had to deal with that and that’s not easy for me to understand, interpret and it’s not easy to interpret on camera, not with the world watching’.

The pair would split again for good in 2013.

Madonna’s cheeky flash

No one does drama quite like the Queen of pop and she proved this once more in 2015.

Madonna, then 56, had already stolen the limelight in a sexy matador outfit; a custom made Givenchy look complete with leather bodice, gloves and thigh-high boots.

The legend was accompanied by DJ Diplo and rapper Nas at the Los Angeles event, both of whom have worked with the star on her much-talked about album Rebel Heart. 

But it was what happened next that really got people talking.

The Vogue hitmaker stunned onlookers when she strutted the red carpet and turned around to flash her peachy bottom. 

It was a mooning like no other and something watchers will perhaps never forget.

Funnily enough, Madonna insisted she wasn’t trying to be provocative : ‘I had an inspired wardrobe malfunction moment’ she said at the time. 

‘As I was walking away, I wasn’t mooning – I just lifted my dress up. Mooning is like naked butt. Everyone’s seen my naked butt already’.

Taylor Swift takes a swipe at Kanye West

Kanye West’s infamous invasion of Taylor’s Swift speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards set off a long-running feud between the two megastars.

A 32-year-old Kanye stormed the stage to unleash an astonishing rant aimed at the then-19-year-old country starlet. Turning to the audience he shouted that the Best Female Video gong should have gone to his friend Beyoncé, for Single Ladies.

Their bad blood boiled over at the 2016 Grammys when Taylor called him out live on TV.  

The Shake It Off star hit back with a very thinly-veiled dig where she pointedly said that when you’re a young woman people will ‘try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments’.

Taylor’s strong words at the Staples Center came after the Gold Digger rapper released a track about having sex with her and claimed he made ‘that b***h famous’ with his 2009 MTV Awards stage invasion. 

Jennifer Lopez snaps at Ben Affleck

The premiere music ceremony is known for hosting the hottest A-listers, and in 2023 it was the perfect stage for Hollywood’s it couple to show their love.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s appearance at the 65th Grammy awards is still memorable, but not for the reasons you might think.

The Love Don’t Cost a Thing hitmaker, then 53, looked phenomenal as ever for the occasion, sparkling in a navy Gucci gown, with a dramatic thigh-high slit that showed off her toned legs.

Though initially she was spotted cosying up to the Argo director, then 50; somewhere along the line things went left, and would perhaps set the tone for a heartbreaking divorce a year later. 

Bennifer fans worldwide were left shocked when the two were inadvertently captured having a very heated exchange at their table.

In a viral clip JLo was seen seemingly berating her husband before realising the camera was on them and smiling for watchers.

DailyMail.com’s lip reader revealed the singer was ordering Ben to make more of an effort during the awards by snapping at him and demanding he pretend to be enjoying himself.

It appeared Jennifer tried to cover up the moment, though her husband had a vacant expression throughout the evening. 

‘Stop,’ JLo allegedly told him. ‘Look more friendly. Look motivated.’ Ben replied: ‘I might’.

Jennifer looked on serenely while the red-faced Batman actor appeared to challenge her. She refused to respond to his posturing, which seemed to irritate him further.

The tense exchange reportedly began with Ben whispering into his then-wife’s ear – only for her to jerk away and seemingly snap at him in response.

The pair finalised their divorce in January 2025. 

Twenty One Pilots accept Grammy awards in their underwear

The 2017 Grammy awards was an event to remember thanks to pop rock group Twenty One Pilots.

It was a big night for the duo who landed the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for their hit Stressed Out; a song penned about not wanting to grow up.

Perhaps as an ode to the lyrics, members Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun stood up and promptly dropped their pants before making their way to the stage to collect the gongs.

Standing in their boxers as if it was the most normal thing in the world, Joseph then turned back time to the good old days and began regaling a story from their youth in Colombus Ohio, when a group of their friends were all chilling out at home and watching the Grammys.

‘We noticed that every single one of us was in our underwear,’ he recalled.

‘And seriously, Josh turned to me – and we were no-one at that time – and he said to me: “If we ever go to the Grammys, if we ever win a Grammy, we should receive it just like this”.

‘So not only is this amazing, but I want everyone at home whose watching to know that you can be next’ Joseph concluded.

33 weddings and the Grammys

In 2014 the Grammys put music aside to celebrate the striking down of the Defense of Marriage act, resulting in scores of states legalizing same-sex unions.

The Supreme Court ruled that it was not legal to prevent same-sex spouses from receiving the same benefits that heterosexual couples receive. 

To honour this, thirty-three gay and heterosexual couples were married live on the Grammys stage, with Queen Latifah officiating the mass nuptials during Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ powerful rendition of their song Same Love.

Following the vows, the drama was ramped up as the stage transformed into a makeshift church with an alter and stained glass windows. 

Madonna took to the stage wearing a white suit and hat and performed Open Your Heart to a standing ovation and tears from not just the brides and grooms, but celebrity guests including Keith Urban.