She was five at the time, BTW.
You probably know Flea from the world-famous rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The band has won six Grammy Awards, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this year.
Anyway, bassist Flea had a REALLY wild story about something that once happened to one of his Grammy awards…
When Flea and the band won their first Grammy Flea in 1993 — Best Hard Rock Performance for “Give It Away” — his daughter Clara Balzary was five years old at the time. And she ended up using the Grammy as a garden shovel.
Chatting with LA radio station KROQ, Flea told the story: “Grammys are awesome, but after we won our first Grammy, like three years later, my mom said, ‘Michael, where’s your Grammy?’, and I was like, ‘I don’t know, mom, I put it somewhere.'”
“Months after that, my gardener came out of the backyard, in the garden, and you know how the Grammy looks like an old record player with the horn on it? My daughter had unscrewed it and was using it as a shovel for the garden. It had been out there in the dirt for the whole winter. It had been out in the dirt for the whole winter and stuff.”
NBD, though. Because Flea maintains that he’s “just not really an awards guy.” He joked that he prefers to celebrate new album releases by “drop[ping] about six or seven hits of acid, get naked, paint my whole body in lipstick, and run down the street screaming like mad… It’s not really a celebration, I actually do that every day.”
And, you know, Flea isn’t the only one storing his Grammy in a weird place (or misplacing it).
Portugal. The Man’s Zach Carothers told Billboard that he keeps his Grammy wrapped up near his “yurt with a shed attached” in Portland. It’s “not really the best place to have something special until I can finish some construction.”
Cardi B once told E!’s True Hollywood Story that all of her awards — including her Grammy — live at her mother’s house.
Jack Patterson of Clean Bandit says he and brother Luke keep theirs “in a specially constructed shrine to us in our parents’ bathroom.”
Singer/songwriter Daya says of her Grammy: “My parents took it back to my old house in Pittsburgh because they thought I’d lose or break it somehow. They’re probably right… but it still hurts.”
And Patrick Carney of The Black Keys says: “I keep mine at Al’s of Ohio pawn shop.” He’s probably kidding. (I think?)
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever heard of a performer keeping their award?