Miley Cyrus praised for ‘hilarious’ performance of Flowers at Grammy Awards

Miley Cyrus made her mark as one of the most memorable parts of the 2024 Grammy Awards with her mid-performance quips and passionate acceptance speeches.

The singer picked up her first two Grammys on Sunday night (5 February), scooping both Best Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year for her beachy breakup anthem, “Flowers”.

In between her wins, she performed the 2023 track on stage, and at one point, called out the audience for not singing along.

Urging the crowd to give her more enthusiastic feedback, she said in between lyrics: “Why are you acting like you don’t know this song?”

Then, she squeezed in some spoken adlibs and adapted some lyrics to mark her achievement.

“I didn’t wanna leave you (but had to), I didn’t wanna fight (but we did), started to cry but then remembered – I just won my first Grammy!”

The song is widely considered to be about the breakdown of her relationship with her ex-husband, Liam Hemsworth.

Fans were quick to share their praises for the “We Can’t Stop” singer’s new rendition of the song online.

“Miley Cyrus just displayed amazing talent and vocals while also being hilarious and sarcastically bullying the crowd into getting hype,” wrote one on X/Twitter.

Another fan concurred: “Wait, Miley Cyrus is hilarious; the way she’s so unserious.”

Cyrus was presented with her very first Grammy, for Best Pop Vocal Performance, by Mariah Carey, and it was clearly a moment that meant a lot to the former Disney star.

“This MC is going to stand by this MC because this is just too iconic,” Cyrus began, gesturing toward Carey.

“Oh my god, I just got stuck in the rain and traffic and thought I was going to miss this moment. And I could have missed the award – that’s fine – but not Mariah Carey! I just saw you at the Hollywood Bowl. It was everything.”

Later in the evening, Cyrus won the award for Record of the Year, beating Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”, “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius, Jon Batiste’s “Worship,” Olivia Rodrigo’s “vampire”, SZA’s “Kill Bill”, “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift and Victoria Monét’s “On My Mama”.

“This award is amazing. But I really hope that it doesn’t change anything because my life was beautiful yesterday,” Cyrus said while picking up the major award.

“Not everyone in the world will get a Grammy, but everyone in this world is spectacular,” she continued, before adding with a laugh: “So please don’t think that this is important, even though it’s very important, right guys?”

Cyrus then began to reel off the names of the people she wanted to thank, including “my mommy, my sister, my love, my main gays because look how good I look”.

“I don’t think I forgot anyone. But I might have forgotten underwear. Bye!” Cyrus said, rounding off her speech to applause and laughter. As noted by viewers, the acceptance speech did not mention her father, fellow musician Billy Ray Cyrus.

Elsewhere, the ceremony was filled with female artists dominating the major categories on a night dubbed “Year of the Women”.

It was recently revealed that the awards show received its highest ratings in four years, with viewing figures up 34 per cent.