Queen Latifah is 51 — midlife, perhaps, but hardly the age when you expect to start receiving lifetime achievement awards.
The youngest was Whitney Houston, who was just 37 when she was honored at the first BET Awards in 2001.
While 37 may be awfully young to get a lifetime achievement award, it’s a good thing BET recognized Houston while she was still here to receive her flowers, to use a currently popular expression.
The oldest solo artist to receive a lifetime achievement award at the BET Awards was Smokey Robinson, who was 75 when he received the honor in 2015.
No music artist wanted to – or could – compete with that, so the show chose a film star instead.