Sam Smith and Kim Petras' "Unholy" performance at the Grammy Awards launched a litany of backlash and issues on social media about how "unfit" the performance is for a televised show.
After watching the performance, Barbz online pointed out the "hypocrisy" of The Recording Academy for allowing Sam Smith's "Unholy" performance to push through, and even awarding them the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, but they were enraged at Nicki Minaj's "Roman Holiday" performance.
Nicki Minaj' Roman Holiday' Grammy Performance
In 2012, a then-burgeoning Nicki Minaj performed her "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded" lead single at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. Backlashes surrounding it have arisen, emphasizing how untimely it was considering Whitney Houston's death happened days ago and how the themes of the performance were too offensive for the Catholic Church to be televised.
The Catholic League expressed their disappointment to The Recording Academy at the time.
"None of this was by accident, and all of it was approved by The Recording Academy, which puts on the Grammys. Whether Minaj is possessed is surely an open question, but what is not in doubt is the irresponsibility of The Recording Academy. Never would they allow an artist to insult Judaism or Islam," the statement read.
That year, Nicki Minaj, despite being the biggest artist at the time, failed to win any of her nominations, including Best New Artist and Best Rap Album. Many fans, including her, believed that she was blackballed by the Academy to win any Grammy in her career.
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Minaj's song, "Super Freaky Girl," which was the first solo rap song by a female artist to have debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 charts in decades, was one of the biggest snubs at the 2023 Grammys.
Because of the comparison of Nicki Minaj's "Roman Holiday" performance and Sam Smith's "Unholy" performance, "Roman Holiday" experienced a surge in streaming in the past week.
At the time of its debut, when streaming units weren't taken into account yet, "Roman Holiday" debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles charts.
In a recent Billboard report, the song has earned 125,000 streaming units following the 2023 Grammy Award. It also had a huge boost in sales at it crashed the iTunes charts 11 years after it was released because Nicki Minaj fans streamed the song as a perfect response to The Recording Academy.
To date, the 54th Annual Grammy Awards is still the highest-viewed ceremony in the history of the show.
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