Diana Ross owns the night
Icon honored at the American Music Awards.
Bruno Mars may have been the big winner at Sunday’s American Music Awards, but the night belonged to Diana Ross.
The music legend received the AMAs’ lifetime achievement award, with former president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, congratulating Ross in a video before she performed a medley of hits including I’m Coming
Out, Take Me Higher and The Best Years of My Life.
The AMAs were a family affair for Ross, with her daughter Tracee Ellis Ross hosting the evening’s ceremonies and her youngest son, Evan, introducing her performance.
After her performance, Ross invited her family onstage to celebrate the honor and dedicated the performance to her fans, saying “You are everything to me.”
Bruno Mars wasn’t at the ceremony Sunday night but he was the big winner with seven awards, including entertainer of the year. Mars also won video of the year and favorite male artist, pop/rock, and favorite album, pop/rock.
“I wish I could be partying with y’all,” Mars said in a video message.
Opening the show were Kelly Clark- son and Pink, who performed a tribute to first responders with a powerhouse vocal duet of R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts.
Known for her aerial stunts, the pop star returned for a second AMAs performance later in the show, singing her new song Beautiful Trauma while strapped to a harness and suspended on the side of the JW Marriott in downtown Los Angeles.
Pink also made an impression during one of the evening’s other powerhouse performances. Christina Aguilera took the stage to remember Whitney Houston with a medley of hits, during which the cameras caught Pink’s expression in a near-grimace. The two singers had a notoriously contentious relationship in the past.
But after Pink’s reaction shot went viral, she took to Twitter to affirm that she enjoyed Aguilera’s Houston tribute, claiming she “killed it tonight for one of our favorite singers ever.”
Selena Gomez brought her new song
Wolves to the AMAs stage for her first live performance of 2017 after her recovery from a kidney transplant earlier this year.