US actress Viola Davis has become the 18th person to become an EGOT winner after picking up the Grammy Award for best audiobook, narration and storytelling recording for her memoir Finding Me.

Davis, 57, joins an exclusive club who have achieved the entertainment grand slam of winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, a prestigious club that includes the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Audrey Hepburn.

“I wrote this book to honour the six-year-old Viola,” Davis said. “To honour her life, her joy, her trauma, everything. And, it has just been such a journey. I just EGOT!”

Davis’ win on Monday (AEDT) makes her the third black woman to achieve the EGOT win, after Whoopi Goldberg in 2002 and Jennifer Hudson in 2022. Davis won her first award in 2001, a Tony for her performance in Broadway play King Hedley II, and her second in 2010 for Fences.

Her Emmy came five years later in 2015 for the popular TV drama How to Get Away with Murder, when she became the first black woman to win the best actress category.

Her Oscar win came in 2017 for the film adaptation of Fences, in which she starred alongside Denzel Washington. Her nomination that year made her the most-nominated black actress in history for the prestigious acting award.

The term EGOT was coined by actor Philip Michael Thomas in 1984 when he was cast in the breakout role of Detective Ricardo Tubbs in Miami Vice. Speaking to the Associated Press, the actor said his plans for future success were EGOT within five years, a dream that actors, musicians and entertainers around the world now aspire to.

The first person to achieve EGOT status was American composer Richard Rodgers in 1962, followed by American actress Helen Hayes and Peurto Rican actress Rita Moreno in 1977.