QUEEN of Hip-hop and Soul, Mary J. Blige was honoured with the Icon Award at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
The renowned songstress was presented with the award by fellow Icon Award winner, Janet Jackson who received hers in 2018. In the show’s history, the Icon Award has only been presented eleven times, and Mary J. Blige is the seventh woman to receive the award.
The music star who was beaming as she was escorted to the stage by the music awards show host, Sean “P.Diddy” Combs said, “I’m in a dream right now.”
Part of her speech goes thus, “What an icon means to me is overcoming obstacles to accomplish the unthinkable and be widely admired for having influence over a multitude of people and that is what I always represented.”
“I’ve been on this journey for a long time, one that didn’t always look the way you see me now, one that is filled with a lot of heartache and pain but God helped me to channel those experiences and emotions in my music which is where I started in music.”
“I was ghetto fabulous and I still am,” she said while laughing. “So ghetto, so fabulous and people were threatened by that. And now everybody want to be ghetto fabulous.”
She also thanked her family, friends, her team and finally, her “phenomenal, diehard, unbelievable” fans.
