Taylor breaks down as Janet Jackson presents Icon of the Year award

Janet Jackson walked onto the Peacock Theater stage in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 28, 2026, and turned Teyana Taylor’s first Icon of the Year moment into one of the night’s most emotional scenes. Taylor had been told she would receive BET’s inaugural honor, but she did not know Jackson would be the presenter, and she cried when she realized who was standing in front of her.

BET framed the new Icon of the Year award as a recognition for culturally influential artists whose work has had a positive impact on entertainment, and Taylor was named the first recipient earlier in June. The presentation carried extra weight because Taylor has built a career across music, film, fashion, choreography, directing and producing, a range that has made her one of the most visible multi-hyphenate figures in Black entertainment.

Taylor’s acceptance speech centered on that lineage. She thanked Jackson and said there would be no her without Jackson, then told the audience she had worked for 20 years to earn the title. The moment played like more than an awards-show surprise. It placed Taylor in direct conversation with one of the artists whose performance style, reinvention and control helped define the standard she now occupies.

That theme ran through the rest of the BET Awards. The show closed with a tribute to Living Legend Icon honoree Ms. Lauryn Hill, another artist whose influence stretches across generations of Black music and culture. The tribute featured The War and Treaty, SZA, Doechii, Tems, Doja Cat, Nas, Lizzo, Queen Latifah, Common and others before Hill herself came out to perform “Ex-Factor” and “Everything Is Everything.”

Hill used the moment to speak plainly to younger Black artists, urging them not to “sell your gift short.” Coming after Taylor’s tears and Jackson’s surprise entrance, the closing sequence made the BET stage feel less like a trophy platform than a passing of the torch, linking today’s stars to the women and men who shaped the sound, style and ambition behind them.