Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber

It was a “spread the love” type of Grammys, with very few sweeps to speak of, with the closest thing obviously being Kendrick Lamar winning five of the nine categories. It is no surprise that he won the important score for Record of the Year at the 2026 Grammy Awards, mainly due to his strength in the rap category. Elsewhere, just about every major star who received multiple nominations had to settle for just one or two, so there weren’t as many truly grueling shutouts. It was like, “A trophy for everyone!” What year…

Well, almost everyone. Somewhat shockingly, Sabrina Carpenter entered the venue nodding six times and left empty-handed. Meanwhile, Laura Young, who has received many accolades but was not expected to win any awards, beat out four of today’s top superstars in the key pop category, delivering one of the night’s biggest shocks and shaking everyone who watched the nearly four-hour pre-telecast “premiere ceremony.”

Here are some of this year’s snubs and surprises.

Surprise: Bad Bunny went where Latin music had never gone before at the Grammys. Calling Bad Bunny’s Album of the Year win a “surprise” doesn’t quite feel right…because we at Variety predicted it perfectly. So it was a relief for us, but as we said at the time, we ended up making a big decision about it. There were many reasons to think that wouldn’t happen. The strength of the competition, which includes Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga, was predicted by many fortune tellers that one or the other would fall into this category. Perhaps more importantly for skeptics, no Spanish-language recording has ever won in any of the top four categories. And since Bad Bunny’s previous film wasn’t even nominated in the same category, it’s easy to assume that he didn’t have enough support at the Academy to push him to the top this time around.

But one of the factors that led me to believe that “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” would score a historic victory here was the fact that all Latin Grammy voters had recently been invited to vote for the standard Grammys. This was a simple solution to the perceived under-representation of the genre. Furthermore, this album was a highly acclaimed monster, as per the Academy’s assessment. And if there was any inclination here to make Super Bowl halftime haters stick by giving the superstar an extra vote of confidence, that might have been a sweet bonus for some voters on the bubble in this case.

Snub: Sabrina Carpenter returns with nothing but great love for that “Manchild” production number. Some might argue that Carpenter returned too soon with a follow-up album after his huge success the previous year. But Manchild was a legitimate monster by every measure other than a 2026 Grammy win, and so was her album Man’s Best Friend, so it’s hard to imagine her strategy there was a mistake. As it turned out, there was too much competition for all of the pop superstars who received multiple nominations this year to win anything, and Carpenter was left out in a game of musical chairs at the awards show.

What viewers will remember most is Carpenter’s performance near the beginning of the show, where she was joined by thousands of performers in an airport baggage claim set that seemed large enough to stretch halfway to LAX, so there’s no shame in falling just short there. Carpenter rarely fails to deliver a high-concept production number, and even if she wasn’t compensated with money, the producers were no doubt happy that she started the show with such infectious dizziness.

Surprise: Laura Young beat all the world’s pop masters in important categories. Did anyone have a prediction list or bingo card for Young winning Best Pop Solo Performance? When she went up against Carpenter, Gaga, Chapel Lawn and Justin Bieber, who would tower over the British singer in terms of recognition in the US? Yes, she is an artist to beat when it comes to her home country of England, and if the critics had voted, we would have argued that she has a fighting chance here. But it also seemed like headwinds were blowing against her when she skipped a recent tour. She wisely decided that her health was more pressing than maintaining public momentum, let alone campaigning for a Grammy.

Her album (“I’m Only F**king Myself”) is great and “Messy” was a huge streaming hit, but Young isn’t for everyone. So consider this left choice a happy one, even if she doesn’t support your interests here. She’s the kind of wild card that makes watching the Grammys so much fun. And instead of the Best Newcomer award she was nominated for (though it was always destined to fall to Olivia Deen), this will provide a platform for the Academy to discover singers with the potential to be around for decades, the kind they want to keep on their books.

SNUB: Justin Bieber’s track record of being underrated at the Grammys continues. Bieber has more credibility than ever at the moment, with his two ‘Swag’ albums receiving a lot of support from critics and tastemakers alike, with these albums leaning more towards an interesting lo-fi sound than the blockbuster work he’s known for. That was enough to earn it four nominations for this year’s awards, but it didn’t win. This is in line with his overall Grammy history of 27 nominations and just two wins.

In fact, despite these four high-profile wins, Bieber wasn’t particularly favored in any of the major categories this year. There were too many strong contenders against him to imagine that his comeback after four years out of the spotlight would be enough to defeat someone with as much currency at the moment as Kendrick or Bad Bunny. (The loss to Laura Young, like all the other stars in that category, may have stung a little more.) People enjoyed his unexpected solo performance on the telecast — even if his off-stage demeanor made it hard to tell whether he was unhappy to be there or just resting in Justin’s face — and the classic quote is enough. “He’s fine.”

Surprise: Billie Eilish is a force to be reckoned with, even when she’s commercially off-cycle. The Grammys love Eilish so much that whenever she steps up to bat for something, you always have to think she could be the winner…as we mentioned in calling her a dark horse in the song and record of the year categories. That said, it seemed like this might not be Eilish’s year, if only because Wildflower was released in 2024 and is a remnant of last year’s controversial album. But apparently voters don’t consider “old news” to be bad news when they love someone as much as Billy and Phineas. She’s one of the rare re-election candidates who appeals to voters in their 20s and 70s alike, a pop classicist through and through but with a winning sass.

Plus, a hit is a hit, and “Wildflower” was a huge hit, even if it bloomed in the shadow of the even bigger “Birds of a Feather.” Speaking of which…why didn’t “Birds” cover anything last year? Perhaps that “disdain” for one of the great songs of the past few years may have put a little wind in the sails of her supporters to get justice this time.

SNUB: K-POP (mainly). “Golden” had to settle for silver. “KPop Demon Hunters” big hit wasn’t completely ignored. Unsurprisingly, it won the award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, making it the first K-Pop record to win a Grammy Award. It fell short in song of the year (losing to Eilish) and pop duo/group performance (to Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s big song “Wicked”), but it fell short in other categories where it had a chance. However, the real snub was felt at the nomination level, where it was not nominated for Best Picture of the Year.

“Abt” Rosé and Bruno Mars’ work was also left vacant despite receiving multiple nods. It was obviously a great song, but it wasn’t the favorite song in the predictions. Rosé was a first-time attendee, but Mars has a long history with the Grammys, and between the enormity of “Die With a Smile” and her upcoming album, which will likely be a big hit at next year’s Grammys, Mars may have felt the need to take a break. But are Recording Academy voters still interested in honoring K-pop artists, even if they collaborate with A-list favorites? It cannot be ruled out.