Viola Davis Reaches EGOT Status With Grammy Win

Viola Davis Wins Grammy Award (Credit: YouTube/Recording Academy)

Viola Davis joined an exclusive club Sunday after winning a Grammy Award.

The actress reached “EGOT” status when she picked up a Grammy at the pre-show ceremony in the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording category for her memoir “Finding Me.”

“I wrote this book to honor the 6-year-old Viola. To honor her life, her joy, her trauma, everything, and it has just been such a journey,” Davis said during her acceptance speech. “I just EGOT!”

Related Story: Viola Davis Says Being a Black Actress Takes ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’

An EGOT is an artist who’s won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson and Rita Moreno are also EGOT winners. John Legend is the only African-American man to win all four awards in competitive categories. Harry Belafonte, James Earl Jones and Quincy Jones are often described as having EGOT status, but they received honorary Oscars and did not win in competitive races.

Viola Davis took home an Emmy Award in 2015 for lead actress in a drama series for playing “Annalise Keating” in How to Get Away with Murder.

She won her second Tony Award in 2010 for best actress in a play for her role as Rose Maxson in the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Fences.

She took home an Oscar in 2017 in the best supporting actress category for her role in the film adaptation of Fences, which was directed by and co-starred Denzel Washington.

Davis, 57, was born in South Carolina and grew up in Rhode Island. She graduated from Rhode Island College and later attended the Juilliard School for four years.

She most recently starred in the historical thriller The Woman King as general Nanisca, leader of an all-female unit of soldiers known as the Agojie, who protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) in the 1800s.

The film was released on Sept. 16. To date, it has earned $92.4 million worldwide.


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