Golden Globe Award winner and Grammy Award nominee Teyana Taylor will be honored as Icon of the Year at the 2026 BET Awards.
Taylor will receive a special award at the BET Awards, which will be televised on Sunday, June 28th. The show will be broadcast live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and will be hosted by Dorsky.
The BET Awards’ “Icon of the Year” award honors a culture-defining artist, a press release explains, “someone whose impact is not measured in years, but by the undeniable weight of their influence in every room, every conversation, and every corner of the culture they touch.”
In recent years, Harlem-born Taylor has come to define that ideal, evolving from multi-platinum singer-songwriter to award-winning actress, as well as executing her vision as a director, producer, choreographer and style star. In the past five years alone, Taylor has won a Critics’ Choice Award for her role in the Sundance Film Festival masterpiece One Thousand and One Nights, a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, and an Academy Award nomination for Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. And her visual album “Escape Room” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. She also starred opposite Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Netflix’s action thriller “The Rip,” and joined the star ensemble in Ryan Murphy’s “All’s Fair” for Hulu.
“Teyana Taylor embodies what it means to be an icon in this moment,” said Connie Orlando, vice president of specials, music programming and music strategy at BET. “She doesn’t demand a seat at the table. She builds the table, designs the room, and sets the tone for everyone who comes there. Her mark is throughout culture, and it’s an honor to celebrate everything she represents on culture’s biggest night.”
Additional winners, performers, presenters and special guests for this year’s BET Awards will be announced in the coming weeks.
