The pop diva hit the stage for a show-stopping efficiency of her best hits, earlier than she was introduced the Video Vanguard Award by Ariana Grande, and reacted to receiving her first Moon Individual ever.
After a profession spanning many years, Mariah Carey is lastly an MTV VMA winner — and was honored with the Video Vanguard Award on the 2025 ceremony.
Throughout the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, the diva took the stage for a show-stopping efficiency, singing a medley of her best hits, together with “Fantasy,” “Honey,” “Heartbreaker,” “Obsessed,” “It is Like That,” and “We Belong Collectively,” alongside together with her new single, “Sugar Candy.”
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Earlier than she hit the stage, Ariana Grande launched Carey’s efficiency by calling her “the explanation so many people sing,” thanking the legend for creating “an anthem for each single event.” She additionally praised Carey by saying, “as a vocalist, there’s just one queen, and that is Mariah” — and crediting her for “offering us with the soundtrack of our lives.”
Following her epic efficiency, Carey accepted her award from Grande, thanking the singer, calling her the “cutest.”
“I am so grateful for you, and I am past pleased with the whole lot you have achieved, woman,” she stated.
Carey then thanked MTV for the respect, earlier than reacting to her first VMA win and the particular award, jokingly calling out the community for lastly giving her a win after she had beforehand acquired 9 nominations. Carey really received her first Moon Individual ever earlier than the ceremony began, when she was given Greatest R&B Video for her music, “Kind Harmful,” which is the primary single from her upcoming album, Right here for It All.
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“Thanks a lot, MTV for giving me the Vanguard Award,” she stated. “I can not consider I am getting my first VMA tonight. I simply have one query. What within the Sam Hill have been you ready for? I am kidding, I like you, MTV. I like you a lot. That is wonderful.”
“Being right here brings again wonderful recollections, like after I introduced LL Cool J his Vanguard Award, or when Whitney Houston and I opened the present with a fake standoff, and we have been each, like, had our clothes and we have been like, ‘Strive it on me!’ It was a second,” Carey continued.
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“Music movies are my lifestyle, of bringing music to my very own life — mini motion pictures, visualizing the sheer fantasy of all of it,” she stated. “And let’s be sincere, generally there’s simply an excuse to deliver the drama and do issues I would not do in actual life: like stepping into drag for ‘Obsessed,’ enjoying my alter ego, Bianca, in ‘Heartbreaker,’ escaping the mob in ‘Honey’ with a sizzling man to a distant island. Nicely, that one actually wasn’t a lot of a stretch, however you already know, it occurred. Anyway, in any case this time, I’ve realized that music evolves, movies evolve, however the enjoyable, that’s everlasting. Thanks, MTV, for taking part in my movies, and to my followers, the Lambily. I like you a lot.”
Earlier Michael Jackson Vanguard Award recipients embrace Katy Perry, Shakira, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Janet Jackson, LL COOL J, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, and Missy Elliott. David Bowie, The Beatles, and director Richard Lester shared the respect on the first VMAs in 1984.
