{"id":158679,"date":"2026-02-01T02:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T02:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158679\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T02:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T02:35:11","slug":"inside-mariah-careys-2026-musicares-person-of-the-year-gala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158679\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Mariah Carey’s 2026 MusiCares Person of the Year gala"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If anyone told Mariah Carey<\/a> ahead of time that Friday night\u2019s MusiCares Person of the Year tribute would feature a live auction \u2014 an auction in which a meet-and-greet with the singer in Abu Dhabi was offered to the highest bidder \u2014 you sure couldn\u2019t tell by observing her reaction.<\/p>\n

Seated near the stage at the Los Angeles Convention Center, a camera feeding close-up images of her face to several screens, Carey appeared genuinely surprised by an auctioneer\u2019s description of the backstage hangout in which she\u2019d be expected to participate next month.<\/p>\n

But such is the life of a queen.<\/p>\n

Watching Carey respond in real time was actually the best thing about this annual Grammy-weekend gala meant to honor an artist\u2019s work and philanthropy. Though the 56-year-old herself sang for only a minute or so at the end of the show, Carey was a delight to behold as a series of admirers took turns performing some of her many hits (and a handful of deep cuts).<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer <\/p>\n

Jennifer Hudson performs.<\/p>\n

(Emma McIntyre \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The look of game recognizing game as Jennifer Hudson crushed \u201cVision of Love.\u201d The tenderness with which she regarded her old friend Busta Rhymes doing their \u201cI Know What You Want.\u201d The slowly dawning realization that this heavily tattooed white man named Teddy Swims was really going to pull off \u201cWithout You.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was terrifying,\u201d Swims said when he finished the song \u2014 an all-timer of a power ballad with a lengthy chain of custody going back through Carey, Harry Nilsson and the doomed Welsh band Badfinger.<\/p>\n

Best of all was the sight of Carey proudly singing along to Foo Fighters<\/a> and Taylor Momsen as they blazed through a pair of tunes from the cult-fave grunge album she secretly recorded in the mid-1990s under the name Chick.<\/p>\n

\"Dave <\/p>\n

Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, left, and Taylor Momsen perform.<\/p>\n

(Matt Winkelmeyer \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Other acts on the bill included Adam Lambert, who went slow and moody for \u201cCan\u2019t Let Go\u201d; the British girl group Flo, which gave an airy performance of \u201cDreamlover\u201d; and Laufey<\/a>, who kept a watchful eye on a giant prompter scrolling lyrics at the back of the room as she did \u201cIt\u2019s Like That.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there was Billy Porter, who took \u201cAlways Be My Baby\u201d way over the top with wild vocal runs that made up for what they lacked in precision with \u2014 well, mostly with volume.<\/p>\n

Carey took the stage late in the evening to give her thanks to \u201cso many friendly and familiar faces \u2014 people I\u2019ve worked with, people I\u2019ve long admired, even people I thought I\u2019d never see again.\u201d After her speech, Jon Batiste popped out to lead a random assortment of stars through an all-hands finale of \u201cAll I Want for Christmas Is You,\u201d which recently set a new record for the most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s Hot 100.<\/p>\n

Charlie Puth? Gayle King? Rita Wilson? Carey looked pleased(-ish) to see each one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If anyone told Mariah Carey ahead of time that Friday night\u2019s MusiCares Person of the Year tribute would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[77359,77361,9923,77360,48,52,51,77358,47,50,49,47205,77356,592,77357,77362,1860,3239,315,60931,1968],"class_list":["post-158679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-admirer","tag-deep-cut","tag-face","tag-game-recognizing-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-live-auction","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mariah-carey","tag-musicares-person","tag-people","tag-secret-grunge-album","tag-several-screen","tag-show","tag-stage","tag-time","tag-turn","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}