Doechii Called Out Trump At The BET Awards & It Needed To Be Said

Doechii used her big moment during the 2025 BET Awards to speak truth to power. While holding her award in one hand, she didn’t just take the stage; she took a stand.

On Monday, when the Swamp Princess won her first BET award for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist, she brought with her on stage her “responsibility as an artist.” 

“As much as I am honored by this award, I do want to address what’s happening right now, outside the building,” Doechii said, referring to the military force being used against protesters happening just beyond the red carpet and the jam-packed Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. After days of residents peacefully protesting the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, things took an even uglier turn after the president deployed military troops into the city to stop them.

“These are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities,” the artist said. “In the name of law and order, Trump is using military forces to stop a protest, and I want you all to consider what kind of government it appears to be — when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us. What type of government is that?”

Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has vowed to deport immigrants from the country, breaking up families and shaking up communities around the country with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Their targeting has been widespread and swift. Over the weekend, ICE detained and deported Khaby Lame, the 25-year-old viral TikToker, at Las Vegas’ airport. 

“People are being swept up and torn from their families, and I feel it’s my responsibility as an artist to use this moment to speak up for all oppressed people, for Black people, for Latino people, for trans people, for the people in Gaza,” Doechii added. 

The raids came to a head in LA this weekend when law enforcement clashed with protesters, using crowd-control munitions, tear gas and flash-bang grenades among largely peaceful demonstrations. Trump used an executive order to deploy 2,000 National Guard troops to the city, despite objections from the governor and mayor, in an effort to disrupt the protests. After protesters briefly shut down the 101 freeway, Trump labeled them “insurrectionists,” a word used to describe the Jan. 6 rioters he incited. Although protests had quieted down on Monday, 700 Marines were sent to the city.

The BET Awards have long been a night to celebrate us and take in the joy that our culture and community creates. It’s also often a stage to shed light on societal issues, as Taraji P. Henson did when she called out the threat of Project 2025 at last year’s program. And it’s a matter of fact that there’s some real widespread burnout among us, as the rest of the country often expects Black people to swoop in and save the day when everyone else faces oppression.

Our rest and our joy, especially this year, have been necessary tools for survival. But when lightning strikes right outside the doors of where dozens of folks with platforms are getting honored, you're damn right it’s their responsibility to use their platform and speak on it. And it would have been insensitive for a room full of celebrities to ignore it completely.

Doechii wasn’t the only one who took their moment on stage to highlight bigger issues. Later in the night, Tyler Perry pointed to the erasure of Black history that’s been happening around the country.

“They are removing our books from libraries, they are removing our stories and our history, they are removing our names from government buildings,” he said. “It’s as if someone wants to erase our footprints.”

He urged the audience not to be silent and “keep making footprints everywhere you go.” 

Doechii did just that. She wrapped her speech, “We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear. And I hope we stand together, my brothers and my sisters, against hate, and we protest against it.”

Watch her full acceptance speech below.