The “Golden” age of women in music was celebrated Wednesday night at the Hollywood Palladium, as Billboard hosted and livestreamed its annual Billboard Women in Music event, with a heavy-hitting list of honorees from multiple genres performing as well as picking up trophies — including Women of the Year honorees Audrey Nuna, Ejae and Rei Am, of “Kpop Demon Hunters” fame.
Ella Langley, who seems very much the woman of the moment in popular music generally as well as country music specifically, was on hand to do an acoustic performance of “Choosin’ Texas” before receiving her hardware from presenter Lainey Wilson. Multi-hyphenate Teyana Taylor was saluted by presenter Dionne Warwick as “my alter ego” and “my baby” following the Oscar favorite’s acoustic rendering of “Bed of Roses.” Previous honoree Brandi Carlile took up presenting duties for Laufey, who sang a solo electric-guitar version of “Silver Lining.”
Ella Langley performs onstage at the Billboard Women in Music 2026 held at the Hollywood Palladium on April 29, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Christopher Polk
Other presenter/honoree hookups and performances included Kehlani singing “Folded” (with her award presented by Ciara), Tate McRae doing “Nobody’s Girl” (with Victoria Monet presenting), Zara Larsson bringing down the house with “Midnight Sun” (presented by Tyla) and Mariah the Scientist being joined by duet partner Kali Uchis for “Rainy Days” (Coco Jones presented). BINI was one of the few honorees getting an award but not performing (with Cara Delevingne as their presenter), and Canada’s the Beaches stepped up to represent global pop as well (presented by Bella Poarch).
Zara Larsson accepts the Breakthrough Award at the Billboard Women in Music 2026 held at the Hollywood Palladium on April 29, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Rich Polk
The individual personalities of the singing voices behind “Golden” were on full display, no doubt to the delight of fans viewing online, as they accepted the night’s climactic award, women of the year. The calmer Ejai spoke first, before Nuna and Ami stepped up with some slightly saltier talk.
“As an Asian woman, the lack of representation was obvious to me” while growing up in the U.S., Ejae told the crowd. “I rarely saw other artists who looked like me on western stages,” so she aspired toward “becoming a K-pop idol. When that didn’t work out, I thought I was done. But when I found songwriting, I realized that music itself never questioned me, because music doesn’t see race or gender. It only asks for the truth. And when I brought my full truth into it — my voice, my Koreanness, my womanness —everything began to shift. I realized that as a woman, our power has never been in fitting in, but is in our resilience to speak our truth. So I just want to say to every woman who may feel unseen, your voice is something to honor. Your story is not something to dilute. It’s something to amplify. And your identity is not a barrier, it’s your power. Because when we create without apology, take up space and lift each other up, we don’t just make music. We can change what it sounds like.”
Rei Ami got blunt straight away: “Being a woman in this male-dominated industry is honestly ass. Sometimes we have to work twice as hard with a smile on our faces as the world nitpicks every part of our being. First, we’re too skinny and then we’re too fat. It goes from, ‘Oh, she’s giving nothing’ to ‘Why is she being so extra?’ It seems utterly impossible to exist. Oh, and God forbid you’re confident, they’ll crucify you for that. But I think that’s why they’re so obsessed, because, well, there’s nothing more intimidating than a confident woman who knows what she wants. Our ability to persevere and show up is an absolute superpower. So thank you to all the women in this room for using their superpowers to inspire, lead and protect. We are not too much; we are not too loud. We are exactly who the fuck we think we are.”
Audrey Nuna, Ejae and Rei Ami of HUNTR/X at the Billboard Women in Music 2026 held at the Hollywood Palladium on April 29, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Rich Polk
Nuna threatened to break from her known form. “I’m very emotional tonight,” she began, even though “I’ve been known to be the emotionally constipated one out of this group.” A bit later, during a possibly emotional pause, she vowed, “They have never seen me cry in real life, so it’s not gonna happen tonight.” “Yes it is,” chimed in the other two, daring her.
Maintaining dry cheeks, she said, “From when I first started releasing music back in 2019 to this moment now, I really never identified with the boxes that Korean American women were expected to fit into. And quite frankly, I didn’t even know how to even begin to try to fit into those boxes. I mean, I’m literally wearing shoes that are boxing gloves right now.” The livestream had a longshot to make sure home viewers could verify this.
“So to receive this honor and represent a song in a film that affirms this notion that the world needs women to show up as their fullest, most whole selves, their weirdest selves, their smelliest selves, whatever it is, it’s rewarding beyond words. I think we all grow up being fed ideas of what our role is supposed to be as a woman in this world. And something that navigating this industry in particular has shown me firsthand is that women are natural-born leaders — and they’re the best at it. Sorry, I’m just gonna say it. And when women genuinely support one another from the heart deep in their core — you know, I was fan grilling over Ella Langley earlier, because that shit was amazing! — it is one of the most transformative, effective and boundary-breaking forces in this world.”
As eloquent as the prepared speeches of the “Kpop” singers and other honorees often were, not everyone came so well-armed. Said Langley when she came to the podium, “I really tried to write a speech for a long time, and I procrastinated until right now. So me winging it in front of people is much better than me reading in front of people.”
Langley and Lainey are competitors at the upcoming ACM Awards, but the latter showing up for the former was a strong indication they don’t see one another as rivals. “I met Ella at Tim Roof in Nashville years ago, and she had this fire about her that I could not help but notice,” Wilson said. “She’s the kind of chick that don’t just walk into a room, she kicks the door in. And she comes from the kind of place where you learn early how to work hard, tell the truth, and stay who you are in the stories that you were born to tell. … What makes me so even more proud is that even with everything that’s going on, Ella is still Ella, she is still hungry, she’s still curious, and still wanting to know more, do more and be more. So. Ella, I love you. I believe in you, and I will always.”
Langley mulled over getting the Powerhouse Award. “To me, powerhouse is strength, resilience. It’s coming back when you don’t necessarily want to but feel like ‘I’m gonna fight for this. I’m gonna fight for this thing that I love to do and this is something I want to do.’ My whole entire life, there hasn’t been another dream for me. There wasn’t a day that I wanted to be anything else. So, to get this award, I think all those years of kicking down doors… to me, powerhouse didn’t go away.” And she thanked the audience for letting her go improv in her speech.
Teyana Taylor and Wale performs onstage at the Billboard Women in Music 2026 held at the Hollywood Palladium on April 29, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Gilbert Flores
There nearly was not a speech from Teyana Taylor, due to a snafu that threatened to hijack the universal good vibes of the evening before it all came together in the end. The singer-actress’ speech did not come up on the Teleprompter, but apparently a request to “ad lib” did, leading Taylor to quip, “My speech is cued. They’re gonna pull up this goddam speech! Y’all know I be having good speeches and shit. I’m not gonna ad lib it.” She then read aloud a cue that said no speech was cued up and to “exit stage right,” which she did.
After the climactic appearance by the “Demon Hunters,” though, host Kiki Palmer was told to ad-lib herself — as she charmingly did — before it was revealed that Taylor and her presenter, Warwick, would be returning for a do-over. It quickly became apparent, from the eloquence of her remarks, why she did not want to toss them out and just wing it. And she alluded to the earlier difficulty with some good humor, while acknowledging things had gotten tense, as she reappeared in sweats instead of the glam outfit she’d worn earlier.
“First and foremost, give all glory to God,” Taylor said, “because I know without a shadow of a doubt, none of this would be possible without his grace, his timing, his protection over my life. There were so many moments I didn’t really understand — even like the one now.” She and the audience laughed.
“This year marks 20 years in music for me,” she continued — “20 years of showing up, even when it hurt … like now.” Another laugh. “Twenty 20 years of growing, evolving, falling, and finding my way back to myself. Twenty years of holding onto a dream, even in the moments it felt like it was slipping through my fingers. And what those 20 years taught me is that purpose doesn’t rush. Purpose waits on you to become who you’re meant to be.
“There were times that it honestly felt lonely, times I was misunderstood, overlooked, counted out. But I kept going because I knew who I was, even when the world didn’t quite see me yet. I’ve been blessed to walk in so many gifts — music, dance, acting, directing — but at the core it all, music is my first love. It’s where I found my voice. It’s what held me when I didn’t feel held. It’s what carried me through some of the hardest seasons of my life. And as a woman and as women, we are visionaries by nature. We don’t wait for permission. We create possibility. We take what we’ve been through and we turn it into something the world can feel. We turn pain into purpose, silence into sound, dreams into something people can finally see. And that kind of vision, it doesn’t change us, it changes everything around us. So never underestimate a woman with a vision, because by the time you see it, she’s already been building it.”
Taylor saluted “my mommy, who is also being honored tonight: You are my backbone, my safe place, my covering. It was so dope watching you curse ‘em out back there.” That line got the biggest laugh of the night. But getting serious again, Taylor added, “But I will say I want to thank Billboard for the accountability. I want to thank Billboard for being warm. I want to thank Billboard for coming to the room right away and acknowledging what was done. So I appreciate you, Billboard.” Then, returning to the subject of her mother, she added, “She taught me how to have grace, y’all.”
Teyana Taylor performs onstage at the Billboard Women in Music 2026 held at the Hollywood Palladium on April 29, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Christopher Polk
It was clearly a big night for Taylor’s parents, who got a huge shout-out from Warwick in her impromptu introduction. “By the way I just met her mother and father,” said the veteran singer. “They’re beautiful people. And I do thank you very much for allowing her to become my baby, too.” Warwick said she came “to honor the young lady that has basically become my alter ego. Yes, she is! She’s one that has the wherewithal with which to speak her mind, and to be completely honest about that.”
Earlier, Brandi Carlile went fangirl on Laufey, recalling, “I met Laufey’s voice before I met her, and I swear to you I thought it was somebody well beyond her years. I was sharing like a dressing room wall with her last year at Glastonbury, and I heard this ridiculously angelic and timeless voice cutting through all the backstage noise. That was a lot [of din]. And I absolutely had to find out who that voice belonged to… When I met her in person, I was totally disarmed, of course, by her raw talent, curiosity and wisdom, and I continue to be blown away with everything that she does.” Listing some of her accolades, Carlile noted that “she also has two Grammy awards for best traditional pop vocal album — the most recent one she won from me.” (Laufey’s latest beat out Carlile’s duets album with Elton John for the honor, but no hard feelings.) “It is a joy to honor a luminous artist who isn’t just making beautiful music. She’s pushing the boundaries of what’s allowed to be commercial and she’s expanding consciousness, which is what all of the truly great, brave artists are called to do.”
Brandi Carlile speaks onstage at the Billboard Women in Music 2026 held at the Hollywood Palladium on April 29, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Christopher Polk
Laufey informed Carlile that they had met even pre-Glastonbury. “Of course, she personifies innovation, and I’m so grateful for her kind words,” Laufey said of Carlile. “Also, I don’t know if you remember me from the time I chased you out of a Oscars party. I ran after you. I remember you were wearing a really chic Valentino outfit and I wanted to compliment you, and I was like, ‘Oh my God. She doesn’t know who I am.’”
Like everyone, Carlile does now, but Laufey spoke of far-away roots, in a land that prepared her well for female leadership. “I grew up in the country of Iceland, surrounded by wonderful examples of individual women,” she said. “In 1980, the country became the first to democratically elect a female president. And we currently have the female prime minister and president.”
Laufey performs on stage at the Billboard Women in Music 2026 held at the Hollywood Palladium on April 29, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Rich Polk
She continued, “When I started making music, I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go. I was a girl that loved singing jazz standard songs from the Great American Songbook, playing classical music on cello and trying to figure out pop songs on the piano. I was this weird concoction of so many different things, and I thought to be successful, I needed to focus on just one thing and be perfect. But what I learned and what brought me with the most joy was blending all of these things together and creating art infused with every part of me that became my driving force. It feels funny to accept an award as an innovator because I really do feel like every woman in this industry is an innovator… This has historically been a business governed by men who profit from the hard work of so many women. So I’m so glad to see that changing. And we’re all here today not because we pushed for change, but because we made room for each other.”
The Icon Award went to Thalía, presented by Eva Longoria. Thalía filled the room with mariachis as she sang a medley that included “Piel Morena” and “Amor a la Mexicana.” “Being an icon is not about standing here alone, it’s about opening doors, so others can walk through them,” she told the crowd. “It’s about holding onto your dreams even in uncertainty.”
The sole non-performer to take the stage for an award was ASCAP’s Elizabeth Matthews, being honored as Executive of the Year, after an introduction from Kim Petras.
The entire show can be seen on Billboard’s YouTube channel, below.
