On March 5, 2006, Three 6 Mafia became the first hip-hop group to win an Academy Award, taking Best Original Song for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle & Flow. The person they beat was Dolly Parton, nominated for "Travelin' Thru" from Transamerica, and the story Juicy J has now told is about what she did next.
Parton was among the first to celebrate when the Memphis group's name was called. Cameras caught her cheering from the crowd, louder than almost anyone in the room, which is the clip that has circulated again since her death at 80 in August. Juicy J has also said he met her backstage before the group went out to perform.
The letter came about a week after the ceremony. "She sent us a letter and she signed it and said congratulations and I'm glad somebody from Tennessee won the Oscar," Juicy J recalled. Parton is from East Tennessee and Three 6 Mafia are from Memphis, and her framing turned a loss into a state result.
Project Pat, who has been reflecting on the same night, added only that it was amazing. The two revisited the story during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, hosted that week by Nashville native Jelly Roll, who played the Oscars clip and observed that the only person nearly as excited as the group was Parton herself.
The win mattered beyond the two artists involved. Nobody expected a rap song to take the category that year, least of all against a country institution, and Three 6 Mafia both won and performed at the ceremony, which had not happened for a hip-hop group before. Two decades on it reads as the moment the Academy stopped treating rap as a novelty entry.
Parton's note fits a pattern that has surfaced repeatedly since her death. Eminem has said she wrote to congratulate him on his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and Beyonce posted a tribute saying she was honoured to have worked with her. The letters seem to have been a habit rather than a gesture.
The tributes have run right across the hip-hop and country worlds in the weeks since her death at 80, from arena encores to a dedicated Grand Ole Opry show. Juicy J's contribution is a piece of paper that arrived in the post in 2006 and has stayed with him since.
The facts
- Three 6 Mafia won Best Original Song at the Academy Awards on March 5, 2006
- They won for It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp from Hustle & Flow
- Dolly Parton was nominated in the same category for Travelin' Thru from Transamerica
- Juicy J says her congratulatory letter arrived about a week after the ceremony
- They were the first hip-hop group to win and to perform at the ceremony
How this checks out
Single source
Reported by a single outlet
Only one outlet has reported it so far, so it stays a single source.
One background citation is listed separately below. It fills in context and does not count toward corroboration.
Cited sources 1
Every outlet that reported this, linked to what it published. Equal credits, in alphabetical order.
Background 1
Context we looked up, with the source for each one. Nobody reported these as part of this story, so they count for nothing toward how well it checks out.
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the Jimmy Kimmel Live! setting for the interview, the Transamerica credit for Travelin' Thru, and the Eminem and Beyonce tributes
Source HotNewHipHop