Evanescence’s Amy Lee: “50 Cent hates my guts”

A photograph of Amy Lee leaning towards the camera

(Image credit: Travis Shinn)

Evanescence singer Amy Lee has said that rapper 50 Cent “hates [her] guts” after the band beat him for the Grammy Award For Best New Artist in 2004.

50 Cent – who was nominated alongside Evanescence, Fountains Of Wayne, Heather Headley and Sean Paul – was considered a frontrunner for the trophy at the 46th annual Grammy Awards. When the nu metal band won the award in a perceived upset victory, the rapper responded by walking onstage during Lee’s acceptance speech.

In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Lee has claimed that 50 Cent is still upset by the incident.

“50 Cent hates my guts,” the vocalist said.

“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.’”

Lee added: “You know when you’re just in shock? He didn’t do anything, he didn’t grab the mic, it wasn’t that bad. He just sort of like, made an appearance. It was like Zoolander when he thought he won.”

The singer then said that she never spoke to 50 Cent following the event.

“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. Thank you for saying I looked unfazed, I was so fazed. 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.”

Evanescence won the Best New Artist Grammy one year after the release of debut album Fallen, which charted at number three on the US Billboard chart and at number one in the UK. Its lead single, Bring Me To Life, was a number-one hit in both the US and UK.

Evanescence released a remastered deluxe edition of Fallen on November 17 to mark its 20th anniversary.

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.