Viola Davis was already the G.O.A.T., but now she’s also an E.G.O.T. with a win at the 2023 Grammy Awards for the audiobook narration of her debut memoir, “Finding Me.”
Davis, who has had some of the most iconic roles of this generation in films including “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “The Woman King,” was the only one in the Best Audio Book Narration category who hadn’t had a Grammy before Sunday night.
In an emotional acceptance speech, Davis said she wrote the book “to honor the 6-year-old Viola … to honor her life, her joy, her trauma, everything… I just EGOT!”
She was up against Questlove, Jamie Foxx, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Mel Brooks, who became an EGOT winner in 2001.
This win makes Davis, 57, the fourth Black person to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony behind Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson and John Legend. Quincy Jones, James Earl Jones and Harry Belafonte’s respective honorary awards also make them EGOT winners. She is the 18th person overall to receive the status.
Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Davis has been racking up these awards since 2001, when she won her first Tony for Best Featured Actress in “King Hedley II.”
She won her second Tony in 2010 for Lead Actress in the Broadway production of August Wilson’s “Fences.”
In 2015, she received an Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her starring role in “How to Get Away with Murder.” In 2017, she won for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards for the film adaptation of “Fences.”