Females floored the Billboard Music Awards 2019, with Cardi B taking home six gongs, Taylor Swift’s memorable performance of her new single ME!, and Mariah Carey delivering a powerful speech for her Icon award.

After being handed the aptly-named award by Jennifer Hudson, Carey then wiped away tears before defiantly throwing away her tissue to make her empowering, emotional and very funny speech.

“Icon? I really don’t think of myself in that way,” she started. “I started making music out of a necessity to survive and to express myself. And I just wanted to create something so I could feel worthy of existing. And if I’ve learned anything, anything at all in this life, it’s that truly all things are possible with God.

“Without getting into all the drama, all the ups and downs of my career—we’ve all seen them, we all make mistakes—there’s been a few memes.”

Mariah Carey’s BBMA speech about feeling like an “outsider” is incredibly powerful