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BRITs, tits, Tories and a too small stool – everything that happened at this year’s Harry Styles Awards in London

By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 13 February 2023

I don’t know if you know this, but the BRIT Awards took place on Saturday night. The first time in the event’s 45 year history that anyone thought to get the entire British music industry drunk on a night where they didn’t all have to go to work again the next day. So, a big night all round. And what was the result of going bigger and harder? Well, it was all a bit boring. At least if you were watching it on TV.

The whole thing ran to its established formula. Celebrities came up and presented awards, musicians came up and accepted those awards. A whole load of big name artists got up and sang songs. And that was all interspersed with awkward interviews with celebs and musicians sitting watching the show just trying to get themselves Saturday night drunk.

Mostly the whole thing seemed to run smoothly, which is no fun, although the show wasn’t without its controversies. Tom Grennan and Ellie Goulding got up on stage to present the award for Best New Artist – the first of the night to go to Wet Leg – and Grennan’s opening gambit was to ask Goulding about her breasts. Then, instead of telling him to fuck off, she talked about her breasts for what seemed like probably too long.

Goulding subsequently defended Grennan, after his comments were widely criticised, saying on Twitter: “A word on BRIT/tit-gate: I was wearing a beautiful breastplate, thank you all for appreciating it. My friend Tom Grennan is 100% an ally and we were having a bit of fun. No offence taken, no harm intended – and no other interpretations necessary”.

Grennan himself added: “What started as a joke between Ellie and I before we went on stage came out all wrong. The nerves got the better of us, but that does not excuse what was said, and I sincerely apologise to anyone who was offended, that’s not me at all and I am sorry”.

Accepting their Best New Artist award, Wet Leg then became the first act of the night to fall foul of ITV’s censorship button when Joshua Omead Mobaraki – guitarist in the duo’s live band – closed off the speech by saying “fuck the Tories”. Given the state of things in the UK at the moment, this seems like a pretty reasonable thing to say, so maybe he just shouldn’t have used the F-word.

The censorship button was employed again later when Daisy May Cooper made a joke about people “doing coke in the toilets”. Whoever had their finger on the button failed to cut that out, however. Although I think she was actually saying that people weren’t doing coke in the toilets. I don’t know if that means they were just doing it at their tables.

What else happened? Oh, host Mo Gilligan got Lewis Capaldi’s name wrong – calling him Sam Capaldi. How we laughed. He also quizzed Little Mix’s Leigh-Anne Pinnock on who was looking after her kids. And in one of the least fun between-award-interviews, he asked Capital FM’s Roman Kemp to do an impression. Kemp then mimicked David Attenborough for what seemed like about 20 excruciating minutes.

There were, of course, many awards handed out. And what do awards mean? That’s right, speeches. Some terrible speeches. Most of them from Harry Styles, who basically won everything. Seeing Harry Styles win awards got very boring.

The previous weekend at the Grammys, he had commented that “people like me” don’t win big awards, even though very popular white men are exactly the type of people the Grammys like to hand out prizes to. Seemingly aware of this, he used his BRITs Artist Of The Year acceptance speech to tell everyone that he was “aware” of his “privilege”. So that’s nice.

Best speech of the night came from Becky Hill, picking up Best Dance Act. Visibly nervous, she spoke about diversity in music, basically calling out the BRITs’ very male-heavy nominations without directly biting the hand that was quite literally feeding her that evening. Which was good.

And finally, there is one more thing I think it’s important we talk about. Something that has been bugging me almost continuously since Saturday night. Why did no one think of giving Stormzy a bigger stool?

Do you remember back in 2018 when Stormzy did that performance where he tore into then Prime Minister Theresa May for her response to the Grenfell disaster? That was a really high watermark for BRITs performances in modern times. And sort of makes censoring someone for saying “fuck the Tories” seem all the more silly. But this year Stormzy just came on and performed while sitting on a stool that was clearly too small for him.

I mean, he’s a big guy, so maybe it’s just too difficult to get an appropriate stool, but then maybe no stool at all would have been better. Or could someone have made him a special big stool? There are definitely options here. Together, I reckon, Stormzy and the BRITs could afford a special stool. Maybe note that down for future reference. Not all of you, obviously, but I think someone needs to take responsibility for this stool-related debacle.

Anyway, plenty of other things happened, but I think I’ve kept you long enough now. Also, I just can’t stop thinking about that stool. So let’s just take a look at who won all the prizes…

Artist Of The Year: Harry Styles
International Artist Of The Year: Beyonce
Group Of The Year: Wet Leg
International Group Of The Year: Fontaines DC
Best New Artist: Wet Leg
Rising Star: Flo

Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act: Aitch
Dance Act: Becky Hill
Pop/R&B Act: Harry Styles
Alternative/Rock Act: The 1975

Producer: David Guetta
Songwriter Of The Year: Kid Harpoon

Song Of The Year: Harry Styles – As It Was
Album Of The Year: Harry Styles – Harry’s House
International Song Of The Year: Beyonce – Break My Soul