Honoree: Chappell Roan (2026)

When I first heard your music, and I first spoke to you, I realized that you're a huge supporter of the LGBT+ community.

That made me very, very happy for someone so young and so early on in your career to be so strident and so supportive meant such a great deal because not everybody is.

And so you won my heart straight away, not with just music, but because of your affiliations to the community.

I thought it was brilliant.

No, just thank you for saying that.

[laughs] I think just being recognized by someone that I look up to so fiercely and just on such a big scale, and awards are so affirming, of course, but also to just feel that someone I, an iconic person I look up to so much to recognize me, it j- it's very affirming because sometimes you don't know exactly if you're doing the right thing because there's so much in the world that needs help.

And that like, okay, I see a person that I look up to who has really trailblazed a path for queer people saying that I am doing something that is actually helping, and I'm like, "Okay, I am doing good." Like, I, I'm not just spinning out here being like, "Well, hope what I'm doing matters." Like, it does, and like, that is [laughs] a very calming, fulfilling feeling.

And I also would like to say that you speak out at a time when we need people to speak out because when I came out in 1976 in Rolling Stone, and then doing the Elton John AIDS Foundation later in my life, it's a different scenario we are now.

It's a more dangerous scenario.

Uh, we live in politically hard times.

Um, we live in times where aids to, uh, gay charities and gay organizations are being cut, and it was really, really, that's what struck me.

I thought, "You go.

You go, girl," because it's just, we need someone as strident as you whose artistic capabilities can back it up.

It's not just some willy-nilly saying, "Oh, I've just had a little hit record, and I'm supporting the gay community." This was a big impact person on the stage and on record and in the entertainment business.

So it was important and incredibly moving at that time for me to see you take that stand so early.

Thank you.

I would say, like, it's easy when it's true.

When it's honest and it's real, it's easy to make it part of everything you do because it's genuine.

And if I didn't feel so strongly, or I, if I didn't identify, and I felt like I was kind of being an imposter, I don't know how I would be able to make it such a part of my project and my lifestyle.

I think that for me, it's kind of impossible to not have it a part of my project.

It's become so apparent that one of the biggest priorities is, like, to make an impact because it's, it just makes so much sense for me personally and, like, the whole Chappell Roan project.

So yeah, I would totally agree.

It just, like, collides effortlessly.

There are a lot of people out there like Troye Sivan and Perfume Genius and other acts who are genuinely authentic in what they mean.

I couldn't imagine living my life if I didn't do actively what I do for the LGBT+ community.