Mariah Carey Shows Resilience and Love While Accepting 2019 BBMAs Icon Award
Mariah Carey is Billboard chart history. She's the only artist to chart in every year of any decade, and for that she (as DJ Khaled put it, finally) received the Billboard Music Awards Icon Award.
After giving a mashup performance of hits that had fans like Taylor Swift belting along, Mimi gave a powerful acceptance speech. After wishing her kids, fraternal twins Moroccan and Monroe Cannon, happy birthday (they turned 8 on April 30), the diva admitted she was a feeling some nerves.
“I’m so nervous! Seriously, thank you Billboard for letting me grow up on the charts with you, and for this incredible honor," she said humbly. "Icon, I really don’t think of myself in that way. I started making music out of a necessity to survive and to express myself, and I just wanted to create something so I could feel worthy of existing. If I’ve learned anything, anything at all in this life, it’s that anything is possible with God.”
After chuckling about her past drama (“There’s been a few memes”) the superstar admitted to never feeling like she fit in. “I guess I’ve always felt like an outsider, someone who doesn’t quite belong anywhere, and I still feel like that lost interracial child who had a lot of nerve to believe I could succeed in anything at all in this world," she said. "But I did believe, because I had too. The truth is I’ve dedicated my life to my music, my saving grace."
She then turned her focus towards her fans. "And to my fans, who are unlike any other entity that I’ve ever known. They’ve lifted me out of the depths of hell and brought me back with a devotion and love," she gushed. "I want to thank all the people who’ve been with me on this journey. Through the highs and lows, through the struggles—through your struggles and mine—and to anybody who doesn’t allow themselves to be broken and keeps getting up and keeps holding on and keeps standing tall and keeps on believing and keeps rising. I celebrate you tonight. And to anyone who’s ever told me a song I wrote helped save your life, I thank you, because you saved mine. And I’ll be eternally grateful for that. I love you."
Watch Mariah's full speech below.