How do you honor an icon? With other icons, dahling. At the 2023 The Grio Awards, which aired November 25 on CBS, Mariah Carey was honored with the Music Icon Award. The first to kick off the tribute was Jennifer Hudson belting “Vision of Love,†followed by Carey’s godmother Patti LaBelle performing “Love Takes Time,†and Coco Jones and Boyz II Men singing “One Sweet Day.†On an episode of Hudson’s talk show after the taping of the awards, Carey called the tribute “incredible,â€Â telling her, “That ‘Vision of Love,’ you made it into like a whole movie. Because you’re an Oscar-winner dahling, of course you did.â€
While accepting the award, Carey also recounted a story about fellow honoree Eddie Murphy that took place not long after she released “Vision of Love†as her first single. “Somehow I snuck away from my first ex-husband, and wound up in an airport store when suddenly I looked up and Eddie Murphy, my favorite star of all time, said to me, the unknown girl who had one song… ‘Hey, aren’t you Mariah Carey?’,†she said. “Maybe I was in shock or something but I just looked right at him and said, ‘And aren’t you Eddie Murphy?’ like so obnoxious.â€