In the hierarchy of "best awards show moments," unplanned moments beat out planned moments every time. There's a realness and relatability that makes them infinitely memorable—it's why a moment like Jennifer Lawrence tripping on her way to accept her Oscar more than a decade ago is burned into our collective memory, while we can't even seem to remember who actually won top awards in more recent years.
The best moments by far, however, tend to be part of a special subset of "unplanned awards show moments" — the unplanned moments that happen when the celebrities involved aren't the focus of the event—and might not even be aware they're on camera.
At the 2025 Grammys, Taylor Swift and Cynthia Erivo gifted the world with exactly such a moment, which played out casually in the background of a clip of Trevor Noah being a very professional host for evening.
In the clip in question, Noah recounts Beyoncé's win three years ago for Best Dance Album before listing her nominations at the 2025 Grammys. Behind him, Erivo and Swift sit together at a table and casually re-enact the viral "holding space" moment from the Wicked press tour.
Taylor Swift and Cynthia Erivo recreate the holding space meme at the #GRAMMYs. pic.twitter.com/V7lSoQ4oY8February 3, 2025
Swift delicately grasped at Erivo's outstretched, perfectly-manicured fingers, calling back to a moment when Erivo's Wicked co-star, Ariana Grande, did the same during a joint interview the pair did with journalist Tracey E. Gilchrist for OUT magazine during the musical's press tour. The moment, which became known as the "holding space" moment, went viral and achieved meme status.
In the original "holding space" interview clip, Gilchrist talked to Erivo about the song "Defying Gravity," telling the actress that people were "really holding space" with the song's lyrics and "feeling power in that.”
In the clip, Erivo seems surprised by this fact, but says that even though she "didn’t know that that was happening," and added "that's really powerful—that’s what I wanted.”
At this point in the clip, Erivo turned to Grande, who was sitting next to her, and gave her a meaningful look, which prompted Grande to reach over and hold Erivo's fingers, presumably for support as both actresses seemed overwhelmed by the moment.
For her part, Grande later confessed to being confused in the moment.
“So I had no idea what any part of it meant,” Grande told Variety of the interview moment that went viral. “I didn't understand the first sentence."
"And then I definitely didn't understand what was happening and how you responded,” Grande added, referring to Erivo during the viral moment post-mortem with Variety. “I was like, ‘Oh what did she say, what did you hear?’ And I just wanted to be there because I knew something big was happening. And I didn't know how to be there."
