Hold up! Beyoncé and Adele are both set to perform at the 2017 Grammy Awards, according to the award show’s executive producer Ken Ehrlich.
In a roundtable discussion for Billboard magazine, Ehrlich was asked whether the “Sorry” songstress, who led this year’s nominations with nine nods, and the “Hello” crooner, who nabbed five nominations, will take the stage. He replied, “Very few people say no to the Grammys. Over all of the years I’ve been doing the show, there have been three or four acts who’ve actually said no.”
When pushed if he wanted to reveal who, he “absolutely” did not want to name names but said, “I can tell you that Adele and Beyoncé are not two of them. We have every anticipation that both of them will be with us in February.”
Adele’s 25 and Beyoncé’s Lemonade will go head-to-head, and the two musical powerhouses will face off against each other in three categories, including Album of the Year. “We love a good horse race,” Ehrlich continued. “It’s a fine line: We love the competition aspect of it, but it’s really more — here’s the cliché — the family of music. I don’t know how many of those three categories they’re in together that we’ll announce during the telecast, but we’ll probably come pretty close. When you can start with that as a foundation for a show, you’re in pretty good shape.”
Adele’s songwriting partner Greg Kurstin (who’s nominated alongside her in four categories) also participated in Billboard’s roundtable and revealed that he saw the “Send My Love” singer on the day of nominations, December 6. “We actually saw each other and had a little champagne. You just never know how anything is going to go,” he said. “I was so nervous the night before. But then I woke up to the good news.”
The Grammy Awards, which will be hosted by James Corden, will air live on CBS from the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 12, at 8 p.m. ET.