Pink Dedicates Her Powerful VMAs Speech About Beauty and Body Image to Her Daughter

Tonight at 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, Pink accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award—previous winners include The Beatles, David Bowie, Kanye West, Beyoncé, and most recently, Rihanna—for her inimitable impact on music, pop culture, and philanthropy. An honor she didn't take lightly, after performing a roaring medley of her most famous hits, the singer used her acceptance speech as an opportunity to speak candidly about body image and self-love, recalling a conversation she had with her 6-year-old daughter, Willow Sage Hart.

"Recently I was driving my daughter to school, and she said to me, out of the blue, ‘I'm the ugliest girl I know. I look like a boy with long hair,'" she explained. Bewildered at the admission, she came back to Willow with a PowerPoint presentation spotlighting gender-bending icons, such as Prince, Annie Lenox, and Freddie Mercury, explaining to her that they "live their truth, are probably made fun of everyday of their life, and carry on, and wave their flag, and inspire the rest of us." Underlining the fact that she herself doesn't fit society's narrow feminine ideals and has been criticized throughout her career for being too masculine, Pink posed four powerful, patriarchy-smashing questions. "I said to her, 'Do you see me growing my hair?' She said, 'No, mama.' 'Do you see me changing my body?' 'No, mama.' 'Do you see me changing the way I present myself to the world?' 'No, mama.' 'Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world?' 'Yes, mama.'" And that's how it's done.