The Grammy Award winning rapper will be honoured at the annual Billboard Women in Music event
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY PARAMOUNT+
Doechii’s 2025 is off to an incredible start. After becoming only the third woman to win Best Rap Album at the Grammys, she has been announced as this year’s Billboard Woman Of The Year. The Denial Is A River artist will be honoured at the publication’s Women In Music event on 29 March.
In 2023, Doechii won the Rising Star award at the same event. As such, she is just the third woman to progress from the Rising Star award to Woman Of The Year. The previous two were Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande. Hannah Karp, the editorial director of Billboard, said: “With her genre-blending sound, Doechii is redefining what it means to be a trailblazer.”
Doechii is also only the second rap artist to win this award, after Cardi B won in 2020, and the fifth openly queer woman to win as well. The previous queer winners have included Fergie, Lady Gaga, Cardi B and Billie Eilish.
The rapper came out publicly in 2022 during an interview with GQ. She said: “I started becoming comfortable with it when I started getting more gay friends. I always knew that I was queer, bisexual.”
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