asked her on stage if her breasts were real.
Casual sexism. Full time dickheadery.
The deeply foul moment happened when Goulding and Grennan were presenting the award for Best New Artist together.
“Don’t I look good next to Ellie Goulding?” he asked as they took to the stage.
“I love what you’re doing,” he added as he gestured to her outfit (a black breastplate contoured to her body and tailored black trousers, i.e. a total cunt slay). “Are they your real boobs?”
I … what? Firstly, not to put my Boomer hat on but … Tom Grennan? Cue my best reaction:
Secondly, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of banter between presenters. But we’ve got to draw the line at sexist and blatantly inappropriate comments.
Goulding bossed her response to the question because she is a queen.
“These are not … no. These are not mine,” she said.
“I wish, mine are a lot further apart.”
But the fact she even had to deal with it is infuriating. Footage of the moment shows how uncomfortable the question made her, and it was actually difficult to watch.
She literally pulled the confused white bloke face.
Except for the fact the comment made Goulding visibly uneasy, the moment was a dismal reminder that women are forced to be polite at the expense of other people. She had to grit her teeth and suck it up lest she caused a scene or made made, you know, millions of live viewers and folks at the BRIT Awards feel awkward.
I’ve been in that situation before and even though it happened on a far smaller scale, it still sucked. I used to work at a marketing agency as an account manager and when I was a wee 23-year-old presenting a strategy to a big group of blokes in their sixties and seventies, one of them told me he “couldn’t resist listening to a pretty girl”.
I made the same face that Goulding did and, because I had no idea what the fuck else to say, uttered a forced “haha … thanks?” and then immediately changed the subject.
There’s just no excuse for it. It’s gross.
To add shit to the stew, at the BRITs there was an award for Best New Artist — and not a single woman or non-binary artist was nominated.
The BRIT Awards got rid of its best male and best female awards in 2022 and introduced gender-neutral awards to be “even more inclusive, recognising exceptional work rather than how artists identify”, a spokesperson told the .
The BRIT Awards can’t try promoting gender equality by removing gendered categories when a presenter asks his co-presenter if her boobs are real. It just doesn’t work like that.
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