It is a universal truth that a touch of Mariah Carey can turn anything including making pizza and refusing to acknowledge other celebrities’ existence into a classy and glamorous affair. At the 27th annual GLAAD Media Awards over the weekend, where Mariah accepted the 2016 Ally Award, the longtime gay icon applied some of her signature pizzaz to the LGBTQ acronym itself. Because while conventional opinion is that LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning, Mariah wasn’t conventional even when she was an unknown twenty-year-old from Huntington, Long Island with a five-octave vocal range to rival Whitney Houston’s.
After being introduced by a rapturous Lee Daniels — “This bitch is one of us, to the marrow,” he told the crowd — Mariah stepped up to the mic with an alternative definition of the queer alphabet. “I was a little nervous about tonight because I thought I had to learn a whole new alphabet to introduce and not un-include people,” she said. “Then I decided that if I had to memorize it I might as well elaborate on it. So we’ve got L: legendary. G: gorgeous. B: beautiful — all of you beautiful people! T: tantalizing, and even Q for quality!” All these descriptors were of course accompanied by multiple finger snaps and hair flicks.
Mariah finished by thanking the LGBTQ community for their “unconditional love” and passing on a message from her son. “I wish all of you love, peace, harmony,” she said, “and as my five-year-old son Rocky likes to say, ‘boobies and butts.'” Watch her legendary, gorgeous, beautiful, tantalizing, and quality speech below.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Photography Vincent Peters [The Hot Beach Issue, i-D No. 288, June 2008]