{"id":500486,"date":"2026-06-29T03:41:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500486\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T03:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:41:16","slug":"teyana-taylor-accepts-icon-of-the-year-at-bet-awards-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/500486\/","title":{"rendered":"Teyana Taylor Accepts Icon of the Year at BET Awards 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teyana Taylor<\/a> was presented with the BET Awards<\/a> 2026 Icon of the Year award by the one and only Janet Jackson. After taking in Jackson\u2019s surprise appearance and sobbing over Jackson\u2019s uplifting words, Taylor accepted the award in shock.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my God. Bitch, I\u2019m gagging,\u201d the multidisciplinary artist said while accepting the honour. \u201cThey did not tell me Janet was coming, bitch, and it\u2019s so crazy because when Kehlani said, \u2018Janet is here,\u2019 I said, \u2018Bitch, is that the surprise?\u2019 I wasn\u2019t sure!\u201d<\/p>\n

After thanking Jackson for \u201cevery text, every hug, every text\u201d as an inspiration and friend, Taylor delivered her speech. \u201cTonight, they handed me a title, and that title is Icon of the Year. And for a little minute, I wondered if I was supposed to feel uncomfortable saying that title out loud,\u201d she said. \u201cBut nah, I worked my ass off 20 years for this.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m not accepting what I\u2019ve earned with arrogance. I\u2019m accepting what I\u2019ve earned with gratitude, and this year alone, I continued to give the world the artist, actress, director, choreographer, creative director, stylist, designer, writer, producer, and chef. I graduate in September, y\u2019all!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Icon of the Year award honours culturally influential artists whose creative contributions have had a positive impact on the entertainment industry. The network\u00a0announced\u00a0<\/a>Taylor as its Icon of the Year earlier in the month. The honour arrives during one of the most expansive periods of Taylor\u2019s career. Making a name for herself in the mid-2000s as a dancer and choreographer, she quickly earned the attention of renowned artists, including Beyonc\u00e9, Jay-Z, and Pharrell Williams. Over the following two decades, Taylor built a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 that has consistently extended past traditional industry boundaries.<\/p>\n

After dropping her debut album\u00a0VII\u00a0in 2014, Taylor went on to release three additional studio albums, including 2025\u2019s\u00a0Escape Room,\u00a0which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Behind the camera, she became one of the industry\u2019s distinctive visual storytellers, earning BET<\/a> Awards for Video Director of the Year in both 2020 and 2023. Before her starring role in the 2026 action film\u00a0The Rip<\/a>,\u00a0Taylor received a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for her role as Perfidia Beverly Hills in Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s 2025 film\u00a0One Battle After Another<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This year, Taylor won the BET Awards 2026<\/a> Fashion Vanguard Award, Video Director of the Year, and Best Actress award. See her full speech below.<\/p>\n

From Rolling Stone US<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teyana Taylor was presented with the BET Awards 2026 Icon of the Year award by the one and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[83614,222695,249994,430,156,111,139,69,15661],"class_list":["post-500486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bet","tag-bet-awards","tag-bet-awards-2026","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-teyana-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}