Mariah Carey will be next gay icon to sing at an Olympics opening ceremony

For many, Mariah Carey is the greatest singer alive today. Now she is getting her chance to perform at an Olympics.

The five-time Grammy Award winner has been announced for the 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony at the San Siro in Milan.

On Feb. 6, she will join a long list of artists who are either part of the LGBTQ community themselves or vocal allies to have sung at an Olympic ceremony.

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Two of the favorites for Milano-Cortina 2026 were first and second on the Grand Prix de France podium, both with 90s pop programs.

A crowd of 60,000 is expected to be there when Mariah’s multi-octave melodies carry around the famous old stadium, which last month was officially earmarked for demolition.

It opened in 1925 and was last renovated in 1990 for the FIFA World Cup.

That was also the year when Mariah released her eponymous first album, which brought her four U.S. No 1 singles, including the soul ballad “Visions of Love.”

Of course, it’s not yet known which of her many hits she’ll perform in Milan, but Outsports will be stunned if “Hero” isn’t on the setlist.

It even contains a “melt away” lyric, which feels fitting for the Winter Games.

So which other LGBTQ icons will “Mimi” be following on from, in the history of Olympic ceremony performances? Here are six of the most memorable…

Celine Dion

From the Eiffel Tower, Celine’s stunning rendition of “Hymn to Love” by Edith Piaf at the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony will go down in history as one of the greatest musical moments at a Games.

Writing for Outsports, Cyd Zeigler described both the person and the performance as “awesome,” with Dion — an avowed LGBTQ ally who also sang at Atlanta ‘96 — having not previously performed in public since 2022, when she was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder.

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga’s riverside routine last year to “My Feather Thing” was largely overshadowed by the clamor for Celine Dion and by the Parisian rain (the segment that aired was pre-recorded).

But judged on its own merits, it’s campy Opening Ceremony fun, with pink plumes, black costumes and a golden staircase ascending. Gaga squeezes in a piano solo too, before the horn section starts up again. Très jolie!

k.d. lang

The Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony wasn’t the first time k.d. lang had performed Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” publicly, but it was probably the most poignant.

Just hours earlier, a luge athlete from Georgia — Nodar Kumaritashvili — had died in a training-run crash, and his teammates who attended at BC Place wore black armbands.

Lang, who also performed at the Calgary ‘88 closing ceremony, said later: “All sorts of things made the environment for the song transcend into something beyond all of us. The song just really blew through me. It was one of the quickest six minutes I’ve ever experienced.”

Ricky Martin

He may not have been public about being gay at the time he performed at the 2006 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, but since coming out in 2010, Ricky Martin has become a prominent advocate for LGBTQ rights.

Looking back now at his song choices for the Stadio Olimpico in Turin — “I Don’t Care” and “The Cup of Life” — it’s the second that’s the clear standout. Its beat is irresistible, and Martin puts his all into it, getting the crowd going on a very chilly night, all framed by a spectacular show of fireworks.

Björk

This one was more about the staging than the song, with Björk’s dress appearing to slowly billow out until the fabric covered the heads of all the athletes standing in the center of the Olympic Stadium arena in Athens.

The Icelander, who was performing “Oceania” — a song sung from the perspective of the ocean itself — has always been open about being bi, telling Diva magazine in 2004: “I think everyone’s bisexual to some degree or another; it’s just a question of whether you choose to recognize it and embrace it.”

Freddie Mercury

For the legendary lead singer of Queen, there were two posthumous performances at Olympic ceremonies after he passed away in November 1991. But such is their power, we’re including Freddie here.

The following summer, “Barcelona” — his phenomenal duet with the opera singer Montserrat Caballe — played out at the beginning of the 1992 Opening Ceremony, set against a montage of the city.

Two decades later, he was honored at the London 2012 Closing Ceremony, with a clip from the band’s famous 1986 Wembley Stadium concert. 

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