SZA was one of the most talked-about names heading into the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards. Nominated for Best R&B Song with Drive and Best Collaboration for Luther with Kendrick Lamar, many expected her to make a big appearance. Instead, she stayed away.
The absence raised eyebrows. Both awards slipped through her hands, with Mariah Carey and Lady Gaga winning Best R&B Song and Bruno Mars taking Best Collaboration. After the show, SZA broke her silence with a short Instagram post. She didn’t mention the awards directly, but spoke instead about “finding peace” and keeping a sense of calm.
Her decision to skip the VMAs was not entirely surprising. The singer has been on the road for much of the year, touring stadiums alongside Kendrick Lamar on their Grand National Tour. It has been a demanding schedule, one that she has described as both thrilling and overwhelming.
In June, SZA spoke openly about her mindset in an interview with Interview magazine. She explained that curiosity is what drives her through fear. “My curiosity outweighing my fear is the only thing that keeps me going,” she said. “Even the stadium tour—I’ve never been on a stadium tour before. There’s so much fear… But I’m too curious about what it’s going to be like to go up in that harness and too curious about what it’s going to be like to really give my best Tina Turner impression.”
She also touched on her spirituality, revealing that she draws strength from rituals tied to water. “I believe that water is my conduit for messaging and energy,” she explained. “When I dropped my album, I gave so much to the ocean. I go to the ocean all the time and I laugh and eat cakes and brownies and then give them to her. I’m not even kidding.”
SZA has long spoken of feeling like an outsider in the music world, despite her growing fame. “I always feel like the underdog,” she admitted. But over the years, she has challenged herself to keep showing up, even when she doubts her place. “I used to not show up to something because it was like, ‘I’m never going to win. No one cares that I’m here. Why would I go?’ But now it’s just like, ‘Fuck it. I don’t have anything else to do, and I want to see where this door is going to lead.’”
This year, however, she chose not to walk through that door. Instead, she found her own way to keep moving forward—quietly, on her own terms.
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