PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 24, 2026 — The NAACP Image Awards announced the first wave of winners on Monday, with Michelle Obama, Will Packer and Kendrick Lamar among the honorees in the non-televised categories, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.
The awards were revealed during the first of three virtual pre-show nights covering literary, short-form and digital creator prizes, streaming on YouTube and NAACP+ ahead of Saturday’s main telecast, Variety reported.
Literary and short-form honors
Obama’s fashion memoir The Look won outstanding literary work — biography/autobiography, while Packer’s Who Better Than You? earned the instructional category, according to those outlets.
Kendrick Lamar’s Apple Music Super Bowl LIX halftime show picked up the outstanding short-form series or special — reality/nonfiction/documentary award, a result highlighted by Billboard and Variety.
Virtual rollout and main telecast
Remaining non-televised categories roll out through midweek, with the televised show set for Feb. 28 on BET and CBS from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Deadline said, as Variety noted, with comedian Deon Cole returning as host.
This year’s honors slate includes Viola Davis receiving the Chairman’s Award and Colman Domingo taking the President’s Award, with A$AP Rocky set for the Vanguard Award and Rev. Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant slated for the Social Justice Impact Award, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
Nominations picture
On the nominations front, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners leads the field with 18 nods, while the series Bel-Air topped the TV categories with seven, Variety reported.
GoldDerby noted the Entertainer of the Year lineup of Cynthia Erivo, Doechii, Kendrick Lamar, Michael B. Jordan and Teyana Taylor, as well as the show’s weeklong rollout, according to GoldDerby.
With the theme “We See You” and more categories still to be announced before Saturday’s gala, the Image Awards’ early results set the stage for the week’s final honors, GoldDerby reported.
How we report: We select the day’s most important stories, confirm facts across multiple reputable sources, and avoid anonymous sourcing. Our goal is clear, balanced coverage you can trust–because transparency and verification matter for informed readers.
Image Attribution ▾
Image: “Pasadena Civic Auditorium” by Los Angeles. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pasadena_Civic_Auditorium.JPG. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). Modifications: resized and center-cropped to 1920×1080.
