Mariah Carey will officially be a Video Vanguard Award winner. The pop icon will receive the prestigious honor at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 7.
Past winners of the distinguished trophy include Beyoncé, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, and Missy Elliott.
Videos by American Songwriter
“They swung it on home!!” Carey wrote on Instagram ahead of the show. “Thank you @mtv for honoring me with the Video Vanguard Award this year.”
The award won’t be the only notable moment of the night for Carey. The singer will also take the VMAs stage for the first time in 20 years.
Carey will delight the crowd with a career-spanning medley of her biggest hits.
Mariah Carey’s Full Circle Moment
Carey’s Video Vanguard win comes nearly three decades after she presented the same award to LL Cool J.
Making that even more notable is the fact that the famed entertainer, who was the first ever rapper to win the Video Vanguard honor, is serving as the host of the 2025 show.
Unlike LL, however, Carey did not win a VMA before the Video Vanguard honor.
A five-time GRAMMY winner, Carey has been up for seven VMAs since 1996. She’s never walked away victorious, though.
Carey has another chance to snag a VMA this year, though, as she’s nominated in the Best R&B Video category for “Type Dangerous.”
The nominated song is off of Carey’s forthcoming album, Here For It All. Her 16th LP, the 11-track album is due out Sept. 26. It features collaborations with Anderson .Paak and The Clark Sisters.
In an interview with BBC Radio 1Xtra, Carey teased what fans can expect from the album.
“It’s such an incredible feeling to be putting out this album, to be doing new music, because I just hadn’t in so long,” she said, before speaking about the title track, which she called “one of my favorite songs on the album.”
It’s a ballad but then it goes in a couple different places,” she said. “There’s a gospely moment, there’s almost a jazzy moment. It’s my favorite.”
Photo by Katja Ogrin/Getty Images for ABA
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