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Usher was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 2024 BET Awards on Sunday, June 30, 2024. However, the musician's lengthy acceptance speech was heavily censored for explicit language, leaving fans fuming.
The honor was preceded by a video montage of Usher's career and an almost all-women tribute performance. The singer, understandably emotional, then gave a passionate speech focused on self-reflection, forgiveness, and fatherhood. However, BET's strict censorship rules left most of his remarks bleeped out.
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Needless to say, internet users were livid. One sarcastically speculated if the singer was talking about Diddy, which led to most of his speech being muted.
Many criticized BET awards for censoring the speech of their "biggest honoree of the night," saying it was Usher's "moment," which they "ruined." Here are some comments seen under @theshaderoom's Instagram post:
One even remarked that it was how the industry worked together to silence the truth:
Usher also won the award for best R&B/hip-hop artist at the 2024 BET Awards
The lifetime achievement honor was preceded by a video montage of Usher's career and an almost all-women tribute performance. It featured Childish Gambino singing U Don’t Have to Call, Keke Palmer's energetic rendition of You Make Me Wanna, Summer Walker performing his Good Good, and Tinashe singing Nice & Slow, among others.
In his acceptance speech, the singer said:
"Getting here has definitely not been easy, but it has been worth it," he began, adding that he hadn't prepared for his remarks as he "wanted this to be present, in this moment."
In his nearly 15-minute speech, the musician also talked about his father, Usher Raymond III, who left his family when the singer was a baby. Urging other fathers to be present in the lives of their children, he remarked:
"I was trying to make sense of this name a man gave me that didn’t stick around because he didn’t love me. You have to have a forgiving heart to understand the true pitfalls and hardships of a Black man in America. And my father, he was a product of that."
He also spoke about forgiveness, saying, "We’ve got to be willing to forgive. We’ve got to be willing to be open." He explained that is what "makes us humans."
"I’m telling you, you’re standing before a man who had to forgive a man who never showed up ever. And look what I made with it. Look what I was able to ‘usher’ in. But that’s what’s real," he joked.
In addition to his lifetime achievement award, the DJ's Got Us Fallin' In Love hitmaker won the award for best R&B/hip-hop artist.
The OMG singer's family members, including his wife, Jennifer Goicoechea Raymond, mother, Jonnetta Patton, sons Naviyd and Cinco, and brother J. Lack, were in attendance.
