Teyana Taylor was introduced with the BET Awards 2026 Icon of the 12 months award by the one and solely Janet Jackson. After taking in Jackson’s shock look and sobbing over Jackson’s uplifting phrases, Taylor accepted the award in shock.
“Oh, my God. Bitch, I’m gagging,” the multidisciplinary artist mentioned whereas accepting the honour. “They didn’t inform me Janet was coming, bitch, and it’s so loopy as a result of when Kehlani mentioned, ‘Janet is right here,’ I mentioned, ‘Bitch, is that the shock?’ I wasn’t certain!”
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After thanking Jackson for “each textual content, each hug, each textual content” as an inspiration and pal, Taylor delivered her speech. “Tonight, they handed me a title, and that title is Icon of the 12 months. And for a bit of minute, I puzzled if I used to be presupposed to really feel uncomfortable saying that title out loud,” she mentioned. “However nah, I labored my ass off 20 years for this.
“So I’m not accepting what I’ve earned with vanity. I’m accepting what I’ve earned with gratitude, and this 12 months alone, I continued to offer the world the artist, actress, director, choreographer, artistic director, stylist, designer, author, producer, and chef. I graduate in September, y’all!”
The Icon of the 12 months award honors culturally influential artists whose artistic contributions have had a constructive impression on the leisure trade. The community introduced Taylor as its Icon of the 12 months earlier within the month. The distinction arrives throughout one of the vital expansive intervals of Taylor’s profession. Making a reputation for herself within the mid-2000s as a dancer and choreographer, she rapidly earned the eye of famend artists, together with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Pharrell Williams. Over the next 20 years, Taylor constructed a résumé that has persistently prolonged previous conventional trade boundaries.
After dropping her debut album VII in 2014, Taylor went on to launch three extra studio albums, together with 2025’s Escape Room, which earned a Grammy nomination for Finest Rap Album earlier this 12 months.
Behind the digital camera, she turned one of many trade’s distinctive visible storytellers, incomes BET Awards for Video Director of the 12 months in each 2020 and 2023. Earlier than her starring position within the 2026 motion movie The Rip, Taylor obtained a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for her position as Perfidia Beverly Hills in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2025 movie One Battle After One other.
This 12 months, Taylor gained the BET Awards 2026 Vogue Vanguard Award, Video Director of the 12 months, and Finest Actress award. See her full speech under.
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