Rod Stewart was “flabbergasted” to receive the Lifetime Achievement award at the 2025 American Music Awards – watch his full speech below.
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Last night (May 27), Stewart was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement award at the American Music Awards, which had returned after a two-year hiatus. At the ceremony – which was hosted by Jennifer Lopez – Janet Jackson received the Icon Award and Zac Brown was presented with the inaugural Veterans Voice Award. See the full list of winners here.
Towards the end of the night, Stewart was surprised by five of his eight children, who had shown up at the AMAs to present the legendary singer with his Lifetime Achievement award. Accepting the honour from his kids, Stewart said: “I’m absolutely flabbergasted. I didn’t know they were here, my children. I’ve got eight altogether, I didn’t have a television – that’s a little joke.”
“When I started singing in the early sixties, well before all of you lot were here, the reason I got into it was because I had this burning ambition to sing. That’s all I wanted to do, I didn’t want to be rich or famous. And here I am a few years later picking up this wonderful award. Thank you so much.”
Stewart continued: “I want to thank all the musicians that I played with, all of my influences. Sam Cooke, David Ruffin, Muddy Waters, all those guys that influenced me.” He added, once again turning to his family: “I’m just so fucking overwhelmed that you’re here. Jesus Christ. Thank you very much.”
Following his speech, Stewart performed his classic ‘Forever Young’ – check out the performance below.
Rod Stewart’s Lifetime Achievement award comes a month before he is expected to perform in front of 80,000 people on the Pyramid Stage as part of the coveted Sunday afternoon ‘Legends slot’ at Glastonbury 2025.
Last month, Stewart shared details of his first solo best-of album, which is set to arrive just days before his milestone performance at Worthy Farm. Dubbed ‘Ultimate Hits’, the forthcoming LP will comprise some of the biggest and most iconic releases from across his extensive discography. These included the signature breakthrough songs ‘Handbags and Gladrags’ and ‘Maggie May’, and move through to huge follow-up hits like ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’, ‘Hot Legs’ and ‘Baby Jane’.
Back in November, the ‘Sailing’ singer opened up about what it will take for him to put on a good show at Glasto 2025 – admitting that “it’s going to cost me a fortune to do it”. “$300,0000 (£236,832)… I’ve got to bring all my band back from America, of course Glastonbury don’t pay for that,” he said. “But I don’t care if it cost me $1million (£789,440), I would have done it. This is a great honour. It really is the greatest honour.”
Late last month, Faces – which features Rod Stewart, The Rolling Stones‘ guitarist Ronnie Wood and drummer Kenney Jones – confirmed that they have recorded 11 new tracks for a new album, their first in over 50 years. While a concrete release date has yet to be announced, they’ve suggested that a 2026 release will be most realistic for their new music.
