You won’t find Evanescence singer Amy Lee chilling in da club with 50 Cent anytime soon. As the goth-rock vocalist explained in a new interview, the rapper “hates [her] guts.”
Fifty’s beef with Lee stems from the time he lost the Grammy for Best New Artist to Evanescence in 2004. Despite not being announced as the winner, 50 Cent still walked across the stage, making for an awkward moment during Evanescence’s acceptance speech.
When asked by Daily Beast about the incident, Lee responded, “50 Cent hates my guts,” adding, “It’s just one of those things… I mean, truthfully, we thought he was going to win, too. It was such a wild night. People are like, ‘What was it like to win a Grammy?’ and I’m like, ‘Stressful!’ I mean, it’s wonderful now, to have them, but it was surreal… I just remember thinking, ‘I don’t even think anybody in this room knows who we are.’”
Unlike Kanye West’s disruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV VMAs, Fifty didn’t say anything, instead quickly exiting the stage.
“You know when you’re just in shock? He didn’t do anything, he didn’t grab the mic, it wasn’t that bad,” recalled Lee. “He just sort of like, made an appearance. It was like Zoolander when he thought he won. No, he never said anything to me, but he likes to talk about me and how he was robbed. I don’t want to start a beef with him. … Everything around me was chaos and I was like, I’m going to stand here and see if this is real later, if I wake up or not.”
As Lee mentioned, 50 Cent still harbors resentment over losing out on that particular Grammy. During his Hollywood Walk of Fame speech a few years back, the rapper lamented, “You got the largest debut hip-hop album [but] you don’t got no Best New Artis’ trophy. The Best New Artist, they gave that shit to Evanescence. Can you find fucking Evanescence? I ain’t seen Evanescence since that night. Since that night they gave them the trophy.”
Evanescence are very much still around. The band just wrapped up a Latin American tour, and are scheduled to play Florida’s Welcome to Rockville festival in May.
Lee and company also are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the band’s multiplatinum debut album, Fallen, which helped them earn that Best New Artist Grammy. Earlier this month, Evanescence released a special deluxe edition of the LP to mark the anniversary.
See Evanescence’s 2004 Grammy speech interrupted by 50 Cent below, and pick up the deluxe edition of Fallen here.