“The View” host Alyssa Farah Griffin was not too keen with Jay-Z channeling his inner Kanye West and “taking away” from Taylor Swift’s moment Sunday night at the 66th annual Grammy Awards.
Griffin, a self-proclaimed Swiftie, knocked the 54-year-old “American Gangsta” rapper for using his acceptance speech for the second annual Dr. Dre Global Impact Award to criticize the Record Academy’s voting history, which inadvertently threw shade on Swift.
Jay-Z called out the Grammy’s for never awarding his wife, Beyoncé Knowles, with an Album of the Year award, the same night Swift was poised to make history and become the first-ever artist to win four Album of the Year awards.
“I don’t want to embarrass this young lady,” Jay-Z said while gazing at his wife, who was standing in the audience at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
“I’m just saying, we want you all to get it right,” he continued at the podium while his daughter Blue Ivy stood beside him. “We love y’all, we love y’all. We want you to get it right — or at least get it close to right. And obviously, it’s subjective, because it’s music and it’s opinion-based, but some things…”
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After briefly mincing his words and dancing around his intentions, Jay-Z blurted out that Beyoncé “has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year. 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.”
Those words didn’t work with Griffin, 34, who felt like Jay-Z was directly attacking Swift.
“I just don’t like… it feels like taking away from artists who are winning that night,” she said. “Beyoncé has been such a support system to Taylor Swift. She showed up to the opening of her Eras Tour movie, Taylor went to hers, and it felt like it was taking away from her making history that night by winning the most Albums of the Year.”
“The View” star went on to explain that many fans never got over Swift winning Album Of The Year for her second studio album, “Fearless,” at the 52nd GRAMMY Awards over Beyoncé.
“This is a long-standing thing. I think the country has never gotten over that [Beyoncé] didn’t win Album of the Year for ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce,’ and this goes back to the Taylor drama, she won for ‘Fearless’ that year. Objectively, I can say I think Beyoncé should’ve won for ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce,’” Griffin said Monday during a Hot Topics about the ceremony.
Not everyone had the same view as Griffin, however and after Sara Haines noted that “Beyoncé wasn’t in that category this year,” legal expert Sunny Hostin jumped in to defend Jay-Z for giving his girl some props.
“I liked that he had the courage to say it for his wife,” she explained. “I like when a couple whose had a tumultuous relationship at times, you see that longevity, you see that love and see them stick up for each other. I liked that part of it.”
“I don’t know that it makes sense that Beyoncé has so many awards and never won Album of the Year. ‘Renaissance’ was just an incredible moment for everyone, for American culture,” the 55-year-old added. “I think there’s some sort of discrepancy there in terms of who this country decides is the pop princess, or who this country makes the determination for. Sometimes, I don’t think the country gets it right.”
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.