Mariah Carey and Jamie Fox Receive “Icon” Honors at the 2025 BET Awards

Mariah Carey and Jamie Foxx can add “Icon” to their accolades respectively. Carey and Foxx each received the “Ultimate Icon” awards respectively at the 2025 BET Awards Monday.

“This means so much, it really means a lot, especially coming from BET,” Carey began her acceptance speech while the audience still applauded the five-octave singer. Mariah expressed that Busta Rhymes, who presented Carey the award, “made her a little emotional.” Sharing that she was watching his tribute backstage, Carey then sang the lyrics Baby if you give it to me from the song (I Know What You Want), which Carey says is a favorite that she was featured on from the album “It Ain’t Safe No More” in 2002. Teyana Taylor was enjoying the song moment from the audience when Carey said Hey, see, look what I started to Busta Rhymes, who could do nothing but laugh. “I heard this is actually my first BET Award,” said Carey. She continued in great Diva fashion, saying, “And, I mean, if you’re gonna get one, you might as well start with the Ultimate Icon Award to more cheers from the audience. Listen to the rest of Carey’s speech here.

Blame it on the emotions. Jamie Foxx couldn’t help but shed tears receiving his Ultimate Icon for his impact on music, film, & Culture presented by the legend Stevie Wonder, who gave a heartfelt tribute ahead of Foxx accepting his award. Babyface, Ludacris, Jennifer Hudson, Tank, and T-Pain performed a musical tribute to the star.

“Man, we used to take this saying for granted, that God is good! ” the multi-hyphenate said through tears. “God is good,” said Foxx…all the time, said the audience members…” and all the time,” Foxx continued, with the audience’s response God is good. The camera pans to Foxx’s daughters, Corrinne Foxx and Anelise Bishop, who looked on proudly at her dad.

“I cannot even begin to express the love that I feel from everybody out there,” said Foxx. We love you, Jamie shouted the audience, and Foxx, with his hand over his chest, responded, “I gotta be honest, when I saw the memoriam,” (pause)…audience cheering, “I was like, man that could have been me,” said a visibly shaken Foxx. “But, I don’t know why I went through what I went through, but I know my second chance, I’m not going to turn down. I have so much love to give. I told Him (God)… Man, bro, just give me one more crack at this, and I promise, whatever reason you put this on me, I promise I’mma do right.”

Listen to more of Foxx’s emotional acceptance speech that went viral.