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The Queen of Pop! Taylor Swift Scores Big With 2023 BBMA Wins Despite Being on Tour in Brazil
Awards season is officially underway for the pop music world and Taylor Swift came out a huge winner at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday, November 19.
Taylor, 33, headed into the night as a finalist in an astounding 20 categories, including Artist of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, Top Billboard 200 Artist, Top Hot 100 Artist and Top Hot 100 Songwriter.
Taylor took home 10 trophies on Sunday night with wins in the categories of Top Female Artist, Top Song Sales Artist, Top Billboard Global 200 Artist, Top Hot 100 Songwriter, Top Radio Songs Artist, Top Billboard Global (Excluding U.S.) Artist, Top Artist, Top Billboard 200 Artist, Top Billboard 200 and Top Selling Song (“Anti-Hero”).
The “Anti-Hero” songstress scored two No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023, with “Cruel Summer” and “Is It Over Now?” topping the chart. The latter song was a bonus “from the vault” tune off the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) release. Another vault song, “Now That We Don’t Talk,” debuted at No. 2 on the chart but was kept out of the top position by Taylor’s previous song.
The Grammy winner’s latest original album, Midnights, debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart when it was released in October 2022, and continued its reign at the No. 1 position for 12 weeks, taking her into 2023 with the No. 1 album.
Going into the night, Taylor was the most-winning female artist of all time at the BBMAs, with 29 trophies. She had the chance to overtake overall champ Drake, who had 34 wins under his belt along with 14 nominations heading in to the 2023 ceremony but ended up tying with him instead.
The 2023 BBMAs changed their format for the awards show from using one venue for all artists and instead utilizing multiple locations for performances and acceptance speeches to be shown via the BBMAs website. Billboard’s social channels and artists’ social platforms also included elements from the event.
That meant that it didn’t matter if Taylor was in New York or Los Angeles to acknowledge her wins. She was on the South American leg of her Eras tour, performing the second of three sold-out shows at Estádio Nilton Santos in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when she got the news of her wins.
“Well, this is unreal. The fact that you guys have given me 10 Billboard Awards — I’m talking to the fans, specifically — none of this happens without you. Billboards base everything off of what you are listening to and what you’re passionate about. And I’m so honored that this year you made the tour, The Eras Tour, so magical,” Taylor said in a heartfelt thank you to her fans from the road.
She continued, “You went and saw the movie, you cared about my rerecords. I just, like, I love you so much. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have you in my corner and caring about the music that I make. So thank you, thank you, thank you, 10 million times, for this.”
Taylor previously shared her joy over her six 2024 Grammy nominations with fans at her November 11 Eras tour concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
While taking a pause from behind her piano during her Evermore set, the Pennsylvania native told the sold-out crowd, “I started off my morning by getting the extraordinary news that because of you, and because of the way you’ve supported my album Midnights, it just got nominated for six Grammys!” while holding up six of her fingers with a huge smile on her face.
