Uh, Who Exactly Is Benson Boone?

NO ONE LIKES to feel out of touch. It can be jarring when listening to the radio—or, in the case of the Grammys, watching an award show—and seeing a face or hearing a name that’s just completely unfamiliar. “Who the f— is that?,” you might think to yourself. “This person is nominated for an award?,” the line of thought continues. “And I have no idea who they are?”

It’s likely that a number of artists elicited that reaction during the 2025 Grammys; music, inherently, is a wide-spanning and subjective form of art and entertainment. You like what you like, and it may not be the same stuff that’s landing in the mainstream and earning widespread acclaim. Still: names like Sabrina Carpenter, Shaboozey, and Chappell Roan (all nominated for Best New Artist) have been hard to escape for anyone living through the present day cultural moment. But the Grammys had a big moment for someone else: a dude named Benson Boone.

And if you heard that name and saw him give a performance—where he stripped off his suit to reveal an Elvis-esque jumpsuit (with the help of Nikki Glaser and Heidi Klum), belted out some song, did a backflip, and grabbed his crotch—and were completely confused and baffled as to who this man is… you were not alone.

(Also, about that whole crotch thing… Mr. Boone went on his Instagram and addressed the whole thing. “Sorry for adjusting my jumpsuit so aggressively on stage tonight that thing was extremely restricting in certain areas,” he wrote on an Instagram stories post following the show. OK then!)

The Best New Artist category has never made a lot of sense. Khruangbin, one of the 2025 nominees, has been releasing music for more than a decade, and notably collaborated with superstar artist Leon Bridges back in 2019. While Sabrina Carpenter certainly broke out in 2024, she’s been putting out music since 2015; Short n’ Sweet is actually her sixth album.

But Benson Boone… this is a man who seems to have come out of nowhere. Once he started to perform, his song, “Beautiful Things,” may have started to sound a little familiar; maybe that’s because you heard it in a commercial, or on Instagram Reels, or in a TikTok. It’s that kind of song. Maybe he looked familiar; that’s because he more or less looks like a cross between ascending movie stars Jacob Elordi and Paul Mescal, but smushed down to Bruno Mars size. Everything about Benson Boone, down to his alliterative name that sounds like either a comic book character or an all-star baseball player seems familiar—but yet it’s hard to know who, exactly, he is.

If Benson Boone is anything, however, he’s self-aware; he may have been nominated for Best New Artist, but he clearly knew that the nomination itself was going to be his victory.

“Chappell Roan is gonna get that Grammy,” he correctly predicted in a video interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “This is her year. I think she’s incredible.”

We’re going to give credit where credit is due: he understands what’s going on. And doing a backflip is no easy feat, as Tom Holland acknowledged in Men’s Health‘s most recent cover story. So bravo, Benson Boone.

Who actually is Benson Boone?

Benson Boone got his start in music in a decidedly modern way; after getting some early notoriety from posting singing videos on TikTok, he eventually auditioned for American Idol in season 19, which aired in early 2021. He wowed the judges and got through to the Hollywood round; he competed in the Hollywood round before choosing to withdraw from the show and focus on his career. The show only aired his original audition.

Boone continued posting on TikTok where he continued to gain notoriety and fame, eventually catching the attention of Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds, who would eventually sign him to his label, Night Street Records. (Both men have also been associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at one point or another; Boone is currently a member, while Reynolds no longer practices.)

Boone’s first single, “Ghost Town,” continued to build his star, eventually getting into the Billboard Hot 100 and getting him the opportunity to perform on TV shows like The Kelly Clarkson Show. He was also chosen by Taylor Swift to be an opener for one of the London shows in her famous Eras tour.

His song “Beautiful Things” is one of the most-streamed in recent music history; since its release in January 2024, it has more than 1.7 billion streams on Spotify, and peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.