Mariah Carey — Breaker of records, Queen of Statis — performs “Type Dangerous” at the 2025 BET Awards.

Mariah Carey was honoured at the 2025 BET Awards with the Ultimate Icon award — much deserved. But do you know what’s crazy? Mariah has never actually won a BET Award. Years of releasing R&B records, number 1 albums, number 1 hits, Hip-Hop collaborations and being a blueprint for many of the acts who have won BET awards over the years. And yet, she had not a single BET award to her name. I can’t even say that it’s because somebody at BET was running the ‘Mariah Carey is actually white’ message board on 4chan, because Justin Timberlake and Sam Smith have won BET awards.

BET should be ashamed of themselves.

Mariah subtly shaded BET for not having received any awards prior in her acceptance speech, but she kept it cute and made light of it. She’s better than me. I woulda dragged BET good and proper on camera, in front of everybody. Because what do you mean I’ve been out here with multiple Billboard Hot 100 number 1 R&B singles, Billboard Hot 200 number 1 R&B albums, breaking records and contributing to the culture for decades, and you ain’t acknowledged this with any awards for 25 years!?

Fuck your Ultimate Icon Award.

HENNYWAY.

Mariah being honoured with an icon award came with a performance. And if you’ve been keeping up with Mariah’s performances lately, then the lethargy on display here was not a surprise.

Mariah looked amazing. The staging and choreography was really cool. And Mariah had to remind folks of the accolades and sales, by including them in the stage visuals — which was a really nice touch and another jab at BET not awarding a bitch at the points in her career when she was fucking it up on the charts. None of this fully distracted from how little Mariah was moving. But with “Type Dangerous” being short ‘n’ sweet — even with an additional verse from Hip-Hop legend, Rakim — the whole performance was over before you could really fixate on Mariah looking like somebody with a Sheikeh slate hit her with stasis.

Overall, the performance was cute. Mariah lip synced, but I’m absolutely fine with that despite her not moving. Because I do not fully trust her live vocals at the moment. And it’s becoming more and more evident that Mariah’s lack of movement on stage and the very noticeable decline in her vocals is not just ‘age’ as many fans are saying. And I certainly don’t think it’s laziness.

Mariah is in her stiff girl era and I’m quickly making peace with it.

Mariah Carey performing at the BET Awards '25 | BET

Fans are saying they want Mariah to tour her upcoming album, but I really do not think that she should. Not if this and The Mimi Sessions are the type of performances that she’s going to be giving. Mariah’s creative team is going to have to do THE MOST to really distract from Mariah’s lack of stage presence for an hour and a half. And based on what I’ve seen of their work thus far, I don’t think they are up to the task. Short performances and pop-ups here and there? Absolutely. A full blown tour? Absolutely not.

I also don’t think Mariah should be traipsed around the world for tours, unless she really wants to do it. Perhaps she is in a similar position to Ayumi Hamasaki, where she knows physically she shouldn’t be performing with such frequency, but she enjoys it too much and wants to please the fans to the point where she can’t fathom not performing — even if it continues to affect her physically.

Irregardless, congrats to Mariah on winning the ultimate icon award and finally giving us a televised performance of a song other than “All I Want for Christmas Is You”.

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