Iconic!
Wednesday night,Mariah Careywas honored with the prestigious icon award at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
“Thank you so much for this gorgeous award … I’m so nervous. Thank you,Billboard, for letting me grow up on the charts with you and for this incredible honor,” Carey said. “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, and if I’ve learned anything — anything at all in this life — it’s that truly all things are possible with God.”
Be sure to check out PEOPLE’sBillboard Music Awards coverageto get the latest news on music’s big night.
Mariah Carey.Kevin Winter/Getty
Mariah Carey.Rob Latour/REX/Shutterstock
Carey added: “Without getting into all the drama, all the ups and downs of my career … we’ve all seen them. We all make mistakes. There’s been a few memes. I guess I just 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 at anything at all in this world, but I did believe because I had to. I dedicated my life to my music, my saving grace.”
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The pop star continued: “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 their devotion and love.”
Kevin Winter/Getty
In conclusion, Carey said: “I want to thank all the people who’ve’ been with me on this journey; through the highs and lows, 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 has ever told me that a song I wrote helped save your life I thank you because you saved mine and I’ll be eternally grateful.”
Carey is only the eighth artist to ever receive the icon award at the Billboard Music Awards, following: Neil Diamond (2011), Stevie Wonder (2012), Prince (2013),Jennifer Lopez(2014), Céline Dion (2016), Cher (2017) and Janet Jackson (2018).
Mariah Carey.Ethan Miller/Getty
With 18 No. 1 songs on theBillboard Hot 100charts, Carey — who released of her fifteenth studio albumCautionlast year — holds the record for the most of any solo artist in history. Other impressive accolades include being the only artist to top the chart in every year of any decade during the 1990s, the longest Hot 100 run of any artist in history (79 total weeks) and six No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
source: people.com
