BET Awards 2025: Quick Recap, Where to Catch the Show, Who Took Home the Hardware? What Went Down on Stage. A full quarter-century of Culture’s Biggest Night landed in Los Angeles on June 9. Kevin Hart kept the crowd laughing and groaning as only he can. He turned Peacock Theater into his stand-up arena long before the trophies were passed out.
It was a TV lovers buffet
BTs traditional feed, MTV, MTV2, Pop, Logo, CMT, and even Paramount Network carried the broadcast in real-time. Couch surfers snagged the same action on Philo or DirecTV now, with Philo still luring newbies with that seven-day free taste. Red carpet watchers caught Terrence J and Pretty Vee flirting/roasting the stars starting at 6 p.m. ET.
Kendrick Lamar announced his presence with authority, racking up 10 nods. Doechii, Drake, Future, and GloRilla each elbowed their way into six categories, so no one genre hogged the spotlight. Album of the Year hopefuls read like a playlist half the world can already hum: Drake & Partynextdoor, Chris Brown, and Doechii all figured prominently.
Cowboy Carter – BeyoncĂ© Glorious—GloRilla GNX – Kendrick Lamar Hurry Up Tomorrow – The Weeknd We Trust – Future & Metro Boomin
Best Female R&B/Pop Artist
Album of the Year:
- $ex $ongs4 U — Drake & Partynextdoor
- 11:11 Deluxe — Chris Brown
- All Bites Heal — Doechii
- Cowboy Carter — Beyoncé
- Glorious — GloRilla
- GNX — Kendrick Lamar
- Hurry Up Tomorrow — The Weeknd
- We’t Trust — Future & Metro Boomin
Best Female R&B/Pop Artist:
- Ari Lennox
- Ayra Starr
- Coco Jones
- Kehlani
- Muni Long
- Summer Walker
- SZA
- Victoria Monét
Best Male R&B/Pop Artist:
- Chris Brown
- Drake
- Brent Faiyaz
- Burna Boy
- Usher
- The Weeknd
Best International Act:
- Ayra Starr (Nigeria)
- Rema (Nigeria)
- Black Sherif (Ghana)
- Tyla (South Africa)
- Uncle Waffles (eSwatini)
- Any Gabrielly (Brazil)
- Mc Luanna (Brazil)
- Joé Dwèt Filé (France)
- Sdm (France)
- Bashy (UK)
- Ezra Collective (UK)
The Ultimate Icon Award went to Jamie Foxx, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, and Kirk Franklin, a quartet whose footprints are all over modern music. SZA, The Weeknd, and GloRilla also snagged honors in their lanes.
Performances and Show Highlights 2025’s BET Awards turned into a festival of energy. Teyana Taylor set the stage on fire. Fresh voice Leon Thomas followed, flowing seamlessly into a set of his own hits. Lil Wayne dropped bars, then Playboi Carti kept the crowd jumping.
Fans of the long-running culture-maker 106 & Park finally got the homecoming many thought we’d lost to history. Past hosts reunited onstage, while early 2000s R&B and hip-hop hit-makers gave the crowd a nightly mixtape they’ll play again tomorrow in their heads.
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Red carpet flashes caught luminaries
Snoop Dogg, Keke Palmer, and Tyler Perry as they stopped, posed, and shot off quick, heartfelt tributes. Those personal moments reminded everyone why such shows once felt like reunion tour stops for the whole country, even for people who had never set foot in New York.
The 25th BET Awards added another layer, declaring the night a live textbook page on Black cultural reach. Kendrick Lamar and others kept the trophies spinning while the performances stitched together decades as if the clock had never ticked. Industry insiders and fans alike left saying what the producers had promised all along: this was Culture’s Biggest Night.
Writer: Pranjal Bapna