Janet Jackson is set to receive the Icon Award at the 2025 American Music Awards, where she will also perform for the first time on TV since 2018.
Jackson, who has won 11 American Music Awards over the course of her 50 years in the music industry, is also a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, five-time Grammy winner and two-time Emmy winner who has sold more than 180 million albums worldwide. The chart-topper is one of only four artists to have a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 in the 1980s, ’90s, ’00s and ’10s, alongside Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand and U2.
Jackson’s “Someone to Call My Lover” single off of her 2001 album All for You recently experienced a TikTok resurgence, with the song returning to the Billboard charts, reaching No. 3 on the R&B digital songs chart and achieving a 1,400 percent gain in year-to-date U.S. on-demand streams according to Luminate.
Her breakthrough third album Control, which recently celebrated its 39th anniversary, was the first by a woman to yield five top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and follow-up Rhythm Nation 1814 is to date the only album to spawn seven top-five charting songs on the Billboard Hot 100.
Jackson’s performance will take place during the next leg of her Vegas residency Janet Jackson: Las Vegas, which launched in December 2024, with six shows taking place at the Resorts World Theatre at Resorts World Las Vegas from May 21-31.
Jackson previously received the Billboard Music Awards Icon Award in 2018, where she performed a medley of “Nasty,” “If” and “Throb” and delivered a speech in support of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.
At the BBMAs, Jackson said, in part, “I believe that for all of our challenges, we live at a glorious moment for history. It’s a moment when at long last, women have made it clear that we will no longer be controlled, manipulated or abused. I stand with those women and with those men equally outraged by discrimination who support us in heart and mind. This is also a moment when our public discourse is loud and harsh. My prayer is that weary of such noise, we turn back to the source of all calmness — that source is God. Everything we lack, God has in abundance: compassion, sensitivity, patience and a boundless love.”
The 2025 American Music Awards, hosted by Jennifer Lopez are set to air live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Fontainebleau Las Vegas on Memorial Day, Monday May 26 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT.
Fan voting for the AMAs is open until Thursday at 11:59:50 p.m. PT except in the categories of collaboration of the year and social song of the year, both of which will be open for web voting through the first 30 minutes of the AMAs. Kendrick Lamar leads this year’s nominations with 10 nods.
The American Music Awards was created by Dick Clark Productions. DCP is owned by Penske Media Corporation, The Hollywood Reporter’s parent company, in a subsidiary joint venture between Penske Media and Eldridge.