78-Year-Old Ontario Great-Grandmother Presents Harry Styles With Grammy Award for Best Album

Harry Styles

Harry Styles attends the 65th Grammy Awards on Feb. 5, 2023 in Los Angeles. (Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy); Inset: Harry Styles fan, Reina, from Ontario, presents him with the award for Album of the Year for 'Harry's House'. (Photo: Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Queen Bey wasn’t the only Queen soaking up her moment at the Grammy’s on Sunday night.

Reina Lafantaisie, a 78-year-old Harry Styles super fan from Sudbury, Ont., provided viewers with one of the most viral moments of the night when she announced the pop star as winner of Album of the Year, earning the unofficial title of Queen among the artist’s loyal fan base.

Ahead of the great-grandmother’s big moment, she took part in a roundtable discussion with a fan of each Album of the Year nominee, which included ABBA’s Voyage, Adele’s 30, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti and Beyoncé’s Renaissance. 

Harry’s House by Harry Styles is the Album of the Year,” she says confidently in a prerecorded video that was shown at the ceremony.

“Aside form being good-looking … I love everything about him,” Reina adds of the 29-year-old star. “I love his outlook, his songs and with Harry, he has that thing that draws people to him.

“If the Grammys did their job, he’s getting that award.”

The Harry Styles devotee even had a rebuttal for Bad Bunny’s representative, pointing out that even the Puerto Rican rapper was a fan of the former One Direction singer. “I love Bad Bunny also, but guess where he was last night?” she poses to the other fans, each of whom joined her onstage for the announcement of the coveted award. “At Harry Styles’ concert.”

Lafantaisie knows a thing or two about the pop star’s alluring stage presence.  Joined by her granddaughter, Renée Grenon, she recently made the trip to see him in concert at the Kia Forum  in Los Angeles herself.

After Styles secured wins for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Solo Performance, Lafantaisie told host Trevor Noah she was “more than excited.”

“I’ve been crying,” she said.

But that excitement reached a fever pitch when Noah made his way down the line of superfans and invited her to the stage for the final award. He then handed her the envelop and instructed her to read it.

After a short pause and a bit of a stutter, she squealed her favourite pop stars name and let out a celebratory scream. On stage, the pair shared a long embrace, a moment that Grenon shared on her TikTok.

“When you secretly record your Memere talking about Harry Styles and a month later she’s giving him a Grammy,” she captioned the video.

“When you look into his eyes, he is just full of kindness,” Lafantaisie said of the moment they shared onstage in an interview with the Toronto Star. “He hugged me so hard and for so long and it made me wonder if he was thinking of his grandmother in that moment.”

 

According to Grenon, Lafantaisie’s trip to the Grammys came about after a  video of her praising Styles at a family dinner went viral on Tik Tok.

“I happened to be sitting beside her, and for about 10 minutes she went on explaining to everybody in the room about why Harry Styles is the No. 1 entertainer,” she told ET Canada of the covert recording. “He’s the kindest human. He’s so humble. He’s just the best.

“And so, I guess a producer from the Grammys saw that TikTok and emailed me, but we didn’t really know what was going to happen until the last minute,” she said. “They kind of kept us in the dark. So, yeah, we’re still in shock for sure.”

The “Watermelon Sugar” singer’s multigenerational appeal is no accident. From his flamboyant and androgynous style that’s reminiscent of rock stars like David Bowie to hitting stages with music legend’s like Stevie Nicks and Shania Twain, his brand is steeped in nostalgia.

Even Harry’s House, the album that earned the pop singer the night’s biggest award, is a nod to Canadian folk legend Joni Mitchell’s 1975 song “Harry’s House/Centerpiece.”

Capping off the whirlwind experience, the pop sensation sent over a giant gift basket full of Harry Styles swag, from t-shirts and books to products from his Mick Fleetwood endorsed beauty brand, Pleasing.

“My heart is so full, I probably won’t even sleep for the next three nights,” Lafantaisie told Toronto’s Roz and Mocha Show on Monday.

“I always knew that he would win, in my heart, and I want to tell him what a great person he is, what a great songwriter he is, and that he deserves every accolade he gets. He’ll be here for a long time, and I think my great-grandkids will still be listening to him.”