Grammy win earns Viola Davis coveted EGOT status

Viola Davis now has the distinction of EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) status among her peers after winning her first Grammy award.

The ‘Woman King’ actress took home the award for the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording category for her audio performance of ‘Finding Me: A Memoir.’

EGOT, which for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards, is the status given to people who have won all four of the major entertainment awards. As of 2023 only 18 stars have been able to achieve EGOT.

When accepting her award and her achievement, Davis made sure to thank her family for being her “best chapter yet” along with all of her publishers.

“Oh my God,” Davis said. “I wrote this book to honor the 6-year-old Viola, to honor her, to honor her life, her joy, her trauma, her everything. It has just been such a journey, I just EGOT!”

After leaving the stage Davis was able to give another thank you to fans as well as a few words of wisdom in a video posted on the Grammys Instagram story.

“I just won my first Grammy and I completed my EGOT,” Davis said. “You know what, I feel such a sense of accomplishment from just writing this book.”

“I keep thinking about that saying ‘just when the caterpillar thought it was dying it became a butterfly’ so today I am the butterfly.”

Who are the previous EGOT winners

Viola Davis may have won an EGOT but now she has also joined a limited list of celebrities to achieve this huge accomplishment, with only 18 others earning the status as of 2023.

Jennifer Hudson

Rita Moreno

Alan Menken

John Legend

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber

Sir Tim Rice

Robert Lopez

Scott Rudin

Whoopi Goldberg

Mike Nichols

Mel Brooks

Jonathan Tunick

Marvin Hamlisch

Audrey Hepburn

Sir John Gielgud

Helen Hayes

Richard Rodgers