Snubs & Surprises at the 2026 BET Awards

You didn’t have to be an awards savant to have a pretty good idea who some of the winners would be at the 2026 BET Awards, which were presented at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday (June 28). Sinners star Michael B. Jordan, who won an Oscar for best actor on March 15, also won in that category here. Really, how could he lose? Teyana Taylor, who was Oscar-nominated for best supporting actress for One Battle After Another, won best actress here.

Olivia Dean, who won best new artist at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 1, also won in that category here. She’s the fifth artist to take the best new artist prize at both shows, following Alicia Keys, John Legend, Sam Smith and Chance the Rapper.

Kendrick Lamar, who won five Grammys earlier this year, won two awards here, including best male hip-hop artist for a record ninth time. Lamar has won in that category more often than the next two most frequent winners combined. (That’s Drake with four awards and Ye, the former Kanye West, with three.)

It was also not a surprise that Sinners won best movie, beating One Battle After Another. Sinners received a record 16 Oscar nominations, though it lost the top Oscar, best picture, to One Battle After Another. How to explain the reversal of fortune? Sinners had a Black writer/director, Ryan Coogler, and a mostly Black cast.

That doesn’t mean everything at the BET Awards followed conventional wisdom. Here are the biggest snubs and surprises at the 2026 BET Awards.