Viola Davis earns coveted EGOT status after Grammy win

Mike Bedigan, PA Los Angeles Correspondent

Viola Davis has earned the coveted EGOT status after winning her first Grammy award.

The actress has become part of an exclusive club of just 18 artists that have earned the title, given to those that have won one of each of the four major US awards.

To earn EGOT status artists must win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award.

On Sunday, Davis won the Grammy for best audio book, narration and storytelling recording for Finding Me, which was presented at the awards’ premiere ceremony ahead of the main event.

“It has been such a journey – I just EGOT,” the actress said, becoming visibly emotional onstage as she thanked her family for being “the best chapter in my book”.

Davis has won four primetime Emmys for leading actress, in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019.

She won best supporting actress at the Oscars in 2017, for her role in Fences, and has been nominated four times.

She also has three Tony awards.

Davis, who grew up in Central Falls, Rhode Island, had her breakthrough role as a troubled mother in the 2008 drama Doubt, which scored her her first Oscar nomination, for best supporting actress.

She was the first African-American woman to win the Emmy for best actress in a drama series for her role as Annalise DeWitt on the ABC series How To Get Away With Murder.

Time magazine has named her one of its “most influential people” twice – in 2012 and 2017.

In January 2017 she was honoured with the first star of the year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Last year saw her star in critically acclaimed film The Woman King, playing an African general in the 1820s, but the film was entirely passed over in the Oscar nominations.

She is the 18th person to earn EGOT status, alongside other artists including Jennifer Hudson, Rita Moreno and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.