The 2023 Primetime Emmy Awards ushered in a new addition to the EGOT club. With his Emmy win for Outstanding Variety Special (Live), Elton John has achieved entertainment’s most-prestigious honor.
What is an EGOT? It is an acronym for an entertainer who has won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Oscar and a Tony Award. Before his Emmy win, John won five Grammy Awards in his career. In 2000, he won a Tony Award for Best Original Score for Aida. Additionally, John has won two Oscars. The first came in 1994 for Best Original Song for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King. The second Oscar came in 2020 for “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” from Rocketman.
Only 17 other entertainers have achieved this via “competitive only” wins, which means an award had other nominees and wasn’t a special “honorary” award. Among those entertainers are Rita Moreno, Audrey Hepburn, Mel Brooks, Whoopi Goldberg, John Legend and Jennifer Hudson.
The first person to ever achieve the EGOT was musical theater composer Richard Rodgers in 1962. The entertainer who most recently earned EGOT status before Sir Elton was Hudson in 2022. She was a producer of the Broadway musical A Strange Loop, which won Best Musical at the Tony Awards. Hudson’s other wins include two Grammy Awards and a 2021 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program for Baba Yaga and an Oscar in 2006 for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Dreamgirls.
An additional five entertainers achieved EGOT status with help from “non-competitive” or “honorary” wins. Those five entertainers are iconic figures. They are Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, James Earl Jones, Harry Belafonte and Quincy Jones.
A number of entertainers are one win away from the prestigious honor, including the five music icons below. Keep on scrolling to find out who!
