Janelle Monáe was the visitor of honor on the 2023 Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday night time. The 37-year-old actor and singer acquired the SeeHer Award, which honors “a girl who advocates for gender equality, portrays characters with authenticity, defies stereotypes, and pushes boundaries,” per the Critics’ Choice Association. Past recipients embrace Viola Davis (2017), Gal Gadot (2018), Claire Foy (2019), Kristen Bell (2020), Zendaya (2021), and Halle Berry (2022).
Monáe started her acceptance speech by introducing themself, saying, “I’m Janelle Monáe and my pronouns are she/her/they/them and free-ass motherf*cker.” The actor then dished out some phrases of knowledge to the viewers, saying, “There had been so many occasions in my life the place I didn’t see me. I could not see my gentle. I could not see previous my circumstances. If you realize my story, I wasn’t purported to make it out of Kansas City, Kansas, and be right here tonight. I wasn’t. I did not see the imaginative and prescient clearly for myself. I could not see my present. I could not see what my objective was purported to be at the moment, however thanks God, so many different folks did.”
The actor continued, “They did not surrender on me. They gave me alternatives, regardless of my very own insecurity. I used to be faking it until I made it. So to anybody on the market like me watching proper now, I simply need you to know that I see you, however I problem you to see you.”
In addition to the SeeHer honor, Monáe scored a nomination for greatest supporting actress for her position as Helen in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Also nominated within the class had been Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), Jessie Buckley (“Women Talking”), Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), and Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”).