‘Riot Women’ wins The Gamechanger Award at the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025
The quietly revolutionary show was honoured at tonight's awards
By Nick Reilly
As the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025 continues apace, we’re delighted to announce that The Gamechanger Award has been won by the hit BBC show Riot Women.
The show, written by acclaimed dramatist Sally Wainwright, tells the story of a group of middle-aged women who start a rock band, proving in the process that it’s never too old to rock.
It’s an ethos we wholeheartedly endorse at Rolling Stone UK and, having inspired its viewers to follow suit, we think that this special show is a quietly revolutionary thing.
Woven into the very fabric of what the Riot Women band learn and practise is the ethos of riot grrrl, the original early-90s underground feminist punk movement spearheaded by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna and represented by bands like Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear and Bratmobile.
Accepting the award at tonight’s show, Wainwright said: “Thank you for the fabulous article you wrote about our show in your magazine. We were so moved and touched. You got it. You really, really got it. It was fabulous to have that just before the show went out. It’s so exiting. I was 62 yesterday, so to be a gamechanger… I’m not cool, but that’s quite cool!”
The win comes after Wunderhorse won The Group Award and Lewis Capaldi picked up The Artist Award earlier in the night. Elsewhere, Sir Bob Geldof picked up the Lifetime Achievement Award and Biffy Clyro won The Live Act Award.
The third ever Rolling Stone UK Awards kicked off earlier tonight with a performance of ‘My Generation’ from Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical star Fayth Ifil, before Myles Smith took to the stage to deliver a rendition of his song ‘Someone New’.
Tonight’s awards will close out with a special one-off performance from The Cranberries‘ Noel Hogan and Australian duo Royel Otis, who went viral recently with their cover of the band’s hit single ‘Linger’.
Check back here for all the winners and stories from the Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025 across the evening and in the coming days.