Usher picked up his flowers at the 2024 BET Awards on Sunday, June 30, accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award. The award has been presented in all but one year since the show's inception in 2001. (There was no recipient in 2020, the year the COVID-19 pandemic nearly halted the awards.)
Whitney Houston was the inaugural winner of the BET Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. She was just 37 at the time, quite young for such an award, but as it turns out, it's a good thing she got it when she did. He died unexpectedly in 2012.
Eight BET Lifetime Achievement Award winners also received honors at the Kennedy Center, arguably the top “lifetime achievement award” given to entertainers. These double winners are Earth, Wind & Fire, James Brown, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Al Green, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson and Queen Latifah.
Most, but not all, of the BET Lifetime Achievement Award winners have also won Grammy Awards in competition. BET honored six acts who, for whatever reason, have yet to win a competitive Grammy. These are Diana Ross, The O'Jays, Maze with Frankie Beverly, Charlie Wilson, New Edition and Busta Rhymes.
The 2006 BET Lifetime Achievement Award went to actor Samuel L. Jackson. That was the year Prince died and the show had five separate segments honoring the music legend. A lifetime achievement award to another music star would have easily been overshadowed by all the love shown to Prince, so the series targeted and honored an actor. (Prince received a BET Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.)
Other BET Lifetime Achievement Award honorees not already mentioned in this story include The Isley Brothers, Chaka Khan, Patti La Belle, Anita Baker, Mary J. Blige and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Looking at this roster of past honorees, you might be wondering “who will be left to receive this award in the future”? Quite a few people, as it turns out. Here is a list of top 25 nominees for lifetime achievement awards at the BET Awards. Everyone is still alive. (BET has yet to present a posthumous lifetime achievement award.) All have been active for 20 years or more.
The list includes legends whose careers date back to the late 1950s or early 1960s, such as Jerry Butler, Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder, as well as some stars who broke through in the early 2000s – Alicia Keys, TI and Kanye West/Ye. .
Of these top 25 nominees for lifetime achievement awards at the BET Awards, who would you most like to see receive the honor?
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