The best in the biz! Only 18 stars to date have earned the most coveted honor in Hollywood: the EGOT.
The awe-inspiring acronym is shorthand for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, the four highest achievements one could receive in the entertainment industry. Each award represents a standout in the field of television (Emmy), music (Grammy), film (Oscar) and Tony (Broadway) — and it is an incredibly rare feat to capture all four. While it took some celebrities nearly 40-plus years to score the EGOT, others — like John Legend and Jennifer Hudson — have achieved the honor in just a couple of decades.
Hudson, who got her start as a finalist on season 3 of American Idol — placing seventh overall — is the 17th entertainer to get EGOT status, scoring a Tony in June 2022 for coproducing the highly-acclaimed Broadway musical A Strange Loop. She began her EGOT journey with the best supporting actress Oscar in 2007 for her star turn as Effie in Dreamgirls. She scored her first Grammy two years later and came back for another golden gramophone in 2017. In 2020, she won a Daytime Emmy for her work as an executive producer on the animated movie Baba Yaga.
Legend, for his part, has been the recipient of 12 Grammy Awards, starting back in 2006 and continuing straight through to 2021. His next stop to EGOT glory was quite literally through his Academy Award-winning song “Glory,” which he took home with co-writer Common in 2015. Two years later, the “All of Me” singer scored a Tony for his performance in the Broadway revival play Jitney. He became an EGOT in 2018 — the first Black male performer to do so — when he won an Emmy for Jesus Christ Superstar.
Among the 17 stars to score the highly-coveted EGOT, some of the most famous (in addition to Hudson and Legend) are Audrey Hepburn, Whoopi Goldberg and Mel Brooks. Other standouts include several Disney songwriters and composers, including Robert Lopez — who is not only the youngest EGOT winner (he was 39 when he first became an EGOT), thanks in part to his work on the Frozen soundtrack) but is also the only A-lister in history to win a double EGOT.
Other familiar names for Disney fans are Tim Rice (perhaps most well-known for his music from The Lion King and Aladdin) and Alan Menken, who was inducted into the exclusive EGOT club in 2020. (Some of his most famous music includes The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and more.)
Scroll down to see all of the famous faces who have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, and find out which year they completed it:
