John and TJ Osborne accepted their first GRAMMY Award with a heartfelt message on Sunday evening (April 3). Brothers Osborne took home the Best Country Duo/Group Performance award for “Younger Me” at the 64th GRAMMY Awards, and took to social media to thank some of the people who helped make that happen — including younger versions of themselves as “awkward teenagers.” Their caption reads:
“It's hard to find the words to say about this. We won our first Grammy today... It took years of grinding and hard work. We have so many people to thank but if there are two people that deserve notoriety it's our younger selves. Little TJ and John stuck it out as awkward teenagers and proved what they were certain would happened and what their older selves probably doubted. We will never forget this day for as long as we live. Thank you all for sticking it out with us through everything. See you on the road.”
Brothers Osborne, who closed the GRAMMY Awards show with a high-energy performance of “Dead Man’s Curve,” released “Younger Me” last year. The song serves as a heartfelt love letter to a past version of the speaker’s self. TJ explained as he and John accepted their award that the song had a personal meaning:
“For those of you who do not know this song, it was written really in response to me coming out,” TJ explained, taking a moment as the crowd applauded and cheered. “I never thought that I would be able to do music professionally because of my sexuality, and I certainly never thought (I) would be accepting a GRAMMY, after having done something I felt like was going to be life-changing, potentially in a very negative way. And here I am tonight, not only accepting this GRAMMY award with my brother, which I love so much, but I’m here with a man that I love and who loves me back. I don’t know what I did to be so lucky.”