Oprah Winfrey & More Honored At 35th GLAAD Media Awards LA

GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, announced recipients for 16 of this year’s 33 categories for the 35th Annual GLAAD Media Awards this past Thursday in Beverly Hills, California. Longtime LGBTQ ally Oprah Winfrey was also honored with this year’s Vanguard Award.

GLAAD presented the awards for six categories onstage: Fellow Travelers was honored as Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Ted Lasso scored for Outstanding Comedy, Yellowjackets won for Outstanding Drama, and RuPaul’s Drag Race took home the trophy for Outstanding Reality Program. Monica won for Limited Release Film, and Reneé Rapp was honored as Outstanding Music Artist. Sharon Stone presented the Stephen F. Kolzak Award to Niecy Nash-Betts, who gave an emotional speech about her wife, Jessica Betts, and finding happiness in a same-sex marriage.

Oprah Winfrey received GLAAD’s Vanguard Award for her years of public support for LGBTQ+ issues and for encouraging tolerance, as well as her numerous film and television projects, such as The Color Purple and David Makes Man. Previous recipients of GLAAD’s Vanguard Award include Madonna and Beyoncé. Winfrey grew emotional speaking of her brother, who succumbed to AIDS-related complications at the age of 29.

“Many people don’t know this, but 35 years ago, my brother, Jeffrey Lee, passed away when he was just 29 years old from AIDS. Growing up at the time we did, in the community we did, we didn’t have the language to understand or speak about sexuality and gender in the way we do now.

“At the time, I didn’t know how deeply my brother internalized the shame he felt about being gay. I wish he could have lived to witness these liberated times and be here with me tonight.”

She also reminded the world that, today, ‘undetectable = untransmittable,’ and ongoing attacks against transgender youth. https://youtu.be/t6fMkoPsrAk?si=oRtteklvXgSAecdv GLAAD also announced these winners in an offstage video reel: • Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist: David Archuleta (Archie Music) • Outstanding Film – Wide Theatrical Release: Bottoms (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) • Outstanding Children’s Programming: Ada Twist: Scientist (Netflix) • Outstanding Kids & Family Programming or Film – Animated: Hailey’s On It! (Disney Channel) • Outstanding Magazine Overall Coverage: Out • Outstanding Video Game: Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios) • Outstanding Comic Book: Stars Wars: Doctor Aphra (Marvel Comics) • Outstanding Original Graphic Novel/Anthology: Four Color Heroes (Fanbase Press) • Spanish Language – Outstanding Scripted Television Series: La Noches De Tefia (Atresplayer) • Spanish Language – Outstanding TV Journalism: “Adolescentes trans relatan su experiencia” Noticiero Telemundo (Telemundo)

GLAAD previously announced Special Recognition awards for The Dads (Netflix), Love in Gravity, Relighting Candles (Hulu), Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce (AMC Theatres), The Tennessee Holler, Yes I Am: The Ric Weiland Story, Drag Latina (Revry / LATV), Enamorándonos (UniMás), El sabor de la navidad (ViX), Wendy, perdida pero famosa (ViX) To open this year’s show, actress and singer-songwriter, Kate Hudson, gave a special live performance of her new single, “Talk About Love.” Actress and five-time Grammy-nominated recording artist, Chlöe, performed “FYS,” marking her first music release of 2024 and first live performance of the song. Remaining winners for select categories will be announced at GLAAD’s New York Ceremony on Saturday, May 11. I will be attending that event in person as I’m proud to share that I’ve been honored this year with a nomination for Outstanding Blog. #squeee!