In a sign of the times, perhaps the most notable accessory on the Grammys red carpet this year wasn’t a designer outfit or piece of custom jewelry, but rather a black-and-white pin with a clear-cut political message: “ICE OUT.”
On Sunday, celebrities including Billie Eilish, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Finneas, Kehlani and songwriter Amy Allen wore the pins as they arrived at the Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles for the awards.
This red carpet display stands in resistance of federal immigration agents following the high-profile killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by members of federal law enforcement. Those events sparked a national outcry about the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
“I really wanted to say fuck ICE,” Kehlani told THR on the red carpet after saying the same during her acceptance speech in the premiere ceremony. “We’re too powerful of a group to all be in a room at the same time and not make some kind of statement in our country. It’s brainless to me.”
Allen echoed the “Nights Like This” singer’s sentiment, telling THR that it was “important” to wear the “ICE OUT” pin “because tonight is obviously a big visibility night, and anybody that has an opportunity to spread the word and get the message out that obviously change needs to happen in this country in so many ways. [I] just felt like I needed to wear it today, and I hope I see a lot of other ones out there today too.”
The pins are part of a campaign organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, Maremoto, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Working Families Power that originated with the Golden Globes but has expanded in recent weeks amid the immigration enforcement reckoning.
The idea for the pins emerged about 36 hours before the Globes on Jan. 11, according to Working Families Power director of strategy Nelini Stamp. Good had been shot by an ICE officer just days before, and a group of activists realized they had some Hollywood acquaintances, like acting nominee Mark Ruffalo, who would be open to making a statement.
Off the carpet, Eilish took a moment while she was accepting the Grammy for song of the year to address the ongoing political situation. “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything, but that no one is illegal on stolen land … It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room,” the “Wildflower” singer said.
“Our voices really do matter and the people matter,” she continued. “Fuck ICE,” she added, with the latter two words bleeped on the CBS telecast.
While Bad Bunny didn’t wear the pin on the carpet, he reiterated the message in his acceptance speech for best música urbana album. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he began.
“We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans,” Bad Bunny continued. “The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love. So we need to be different. If we fight, we have to do it with love. We don’t hate them. We love our people. We love our family, and that’s the way to do it with love. Don’t forget that, please. Thank you.”
Organizations affiliated with the campaign reached out to their celebrity contacts and ultimately Ruffalo, Ariana Grande, Jean Smart, Natasha Lyonne and Wanda Sykes wore the pins at the ceremony. “Our purpose was like, if the people in power are not going to do anything about this, we need to make sure that [during] every single cultural event that people see this message of ‘ICE OUT’ and ‘BE GOOD,’” Stamp said.
The pins reemerged at the Sundance Film Festival and the Resonator Awards after Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents on Jan. 24. Olivia Wilde, Natalie Portman and Zoey Deutch wore them during press appearances in Park City that same weekend, while musicians Olivia Rodrigo and Dave Grohl donned them at the Jan. 27 Grammys Week ceremony.
Stamp has always been focused on the Grammys in particular. “Music has been used for a very long time in our country as a form of resistance, opposition, protest, to express the horrors that people have gone through,” she explained.
That has been particularly true during Trump’s second term as president, as musicians including Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo as well as the band Semisonic have spoken out against the use of their songs in social media posts about his administration’s immigration policy. On Wednesday, Bruce Springsteen debuted an ICE protest song dedicated to the residents of Minneapolis, while Lady Gaga also recently paused a concert in Tokyo to condemn the actions of the law enforcement agency.
“I think that this community, musicians, have been at the forefront in entertainment of standing up to what is happening in immigration,” Stamp said.
In the week leading up to the Grammys, organizers set up a distribution center for the pins outside West Hollywood’s historic rock club, The Troubadour. On Sunday, they additionally distributed pins at a hotel in downtown L.A.
Heading into the ceremony, all eyes are especially on Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, who has drawn heated criticism from the Trump administration. After the artist told an interviewer last year that he had not scheduled any U.S. stops on his latest tour in part because he was afraid that ICE agents could show up, Trump and officials in his orbit criticized the NFL’s decision to pick him as the Super Bowl halftime headliner.
The “BE GOOD” and “ICE OUT” pins follow in the tradition of previous red carpet accessories worn by celebrities to support the Time’s Up initiative or voter turnout in the U.S. And as for those who say that wearing a pin doesn’t accomplish much, Stamp argued that the point of the pins is to popularize the demand to remove ICE from American communities.
She expressed hope that the display on Sunday will inspire sympathetic viewers to take action, whether that’s calling their representatives in Congress or donating to support systems.
”I just hope that people see that and say, I could do something if these folks can do something on one of the world’s biggest stages.”
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