Sam Smith becomes new prince of pop with four wins at Grammys (2024)

With Kanye West storming the stage, Sia's modern dance performance and a semi-naked Madonna swinging from the rooftops, it was an eventful night.

But beyond all the hoopla, Sunday belonged to one very unassuming young Englishman - Sam Smith, who swept the board with four Grammys at the Los Angeles show.

Yet despite his amazing triumph there is just one person the 22-year-old hopes will witness his success - the man whose rejection inspired his hit song Stay With Me.

As he accepted Record Of The Year, Sam referenced his anonymous former love: 'I'll keep this one brief – I just want to thank the man that inspired me to write this record.

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'You broke my heart and now I've got four Grammys.'

Last year Sam told The Fader that the song and his album In The Lonely Hour, was inspired by an unrequited love he had for the unnamed man.

'I've never been in a relationship before,' Smith told The FADER. 'I've only been in unrequited relationships where people haven't loved me back. In the Lonely Hour is about a guy that I fell in love with last year, and he didn't love me back.'

And Sam admitted that the whole experience left him in a bad place.

However, things had completely turned around on Sunday evening as Sam swept the board with four gongs, including the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album for his moody album In The Lonely Hour.

Along with Record Of The Year, his hit Stay With Me took Song Of The Year, while Sam himself was namedBest New Artist.

The other big winner was Beyonce, who added three gongs to take her collection to 20.

The wins saw her overtake Aretha Franklin to become the second-most honored woman in the awards' history behind Alison Krauss.

Meanwhile, AC/DC got the show off to a rocking start with their hit Highway To Hell, introduced by a very excited host LL Cool J.

Rapper LL Cool J then returned to the stage singing the first part of his classic hit Going Back To Cali.

Pitch Perfect actress Anna Kendrick took to the stage to introduce Ariana Grande as the second performer of the evening, who sang her ballad Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart.

Ariana's Bang Bang collaborator Jessie J was the third performer, teaming up with Tom Jones to sing You've Lost That Loving Feeling.

Best Pop Solo Performance went to Pharrell Williams for Happy - beating both Sam Smith and Taylor Swift.

The event - held at the Staples Center in LA - then saw it take a country turn as Miranda Lambert sang her hit Little Red Wagon.

Barry Gibb then gave Sam Smith his second award of the evening, with his In The Lonely Hour winning Best Pop Vocal Album.

After accepting his second gong, Sam explained:'Before I recorded this album, I tried everything to get my music heard.

'I tried to lose weight. I tried all these awful things, but it was only when I was myself, that things happened.'

Two performances followed, from Kanye West and Madonna respectively.

Kanye gave a soulful performance of his Paul McCartney collaboration Only One.

Leave it to Madonna to get the party started, as she put on an energetic display singing Living For Love.

The rousing performance finished with Madonna asking the crowd to get on their feet, before she was lifted up off the stage by wires.

Best R&B Performance was given to Beyonce and Jay Z, with Bey accepting the award while Jay watched from their seats.

'Wow thank you guys so much, this is such an honor, I would like to thank God, this has been such an incredible year,' Beyonce said, who appeared emotional.

Next saw two collaborations, Ed Sheeran performing with the Electric Light Orchestra and John Mayer followed by a duet between Gwen Stefani and Adam Levine.

Miranda Lambert - who performed Little Red Wagon earlier - took to the stage to accept her award for Best Country Album, for Platinum.

Barack Obama then gave a brief message about domestic violence against woman in America.

A domestic abuse survivor named Brooke Axtell then took to the stage to tell a first-hand story about how she sought help at a domestic violence shelter.

This followed straight into an emotional performance from Katy Perry who sang By The Grace Of God.

Katy's pop rival Lady Gaga then performed with Tony Bennett, after the pair had done for their jazz album Cheek To Cheek.

Kanye was back on stage to perform with Rihanna and Paul McCartney to perform their new single FourFiveSeconds.

Rihanna gave a spirited vocal performance, and Paul played guitar and Kanye rapped.

The next collaboration of the night was between Sam Smith and Mary J. Blige wearing Zac Posen Fall Winter 2014 Jet Black Stretch duch*esse Gown, who sang his track Stay With Me.

Legendary singer Prince took to the stage as a presenter, with a special message for the audience.

'Albums, remember those? Albums still matter. Like books and black lives, they still matter,' he said before announcing Album Of The Year.

Beck seemed to be a somewhat surprise recipient of the award, and even Kanye West almost jumped to the stage, paying homage to his 2009 VMA incident when he interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech.

Beck performed Heart Is A Drum with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin towards the night of the program.

However, Beyonce had the last laugh putting on an incredible performance of Take My Hand, Precious Lord.

Gwyneth Paltrow introduced the performance, telling the crowd Beyonce's mother Tina Knowles used to sing the song to Beyonce as a child.

Bey then introduced John Legend and Common for the final performance of the night, singing their Oscar nominated single Glory from the movie Selma.

Meanwhile backstage performers and presenters were treated to the MTG official presenter and performer gift suite featuring New Era, Sean John, Gibson, WowWee, Device wear,Welleness 360, Dorco and MTG the INBEAUTE finger head spa from Japans leading Beauty comapany.

“It’s all about that swag,” notes Distinctive Assets’ founder Lash Fary. “It is a true honor to be even a very small part of Music’s Biggest Night®. The 57th Annual GRAMMY Gift Lounge is always the highlight of my year.” Talent will also walk away with a preassembled Grammy Gift bag which represented a diverse portfolio of brands ranging from useful to unique.

The singer later changed into a dark blue pinstripe suit for a duet of his hit song Stay With Me with 44-year-old multi-Grammy winner Mary J. Blige.