Mariah Carey is to headline Brighton Pride this summer – five years after her appearance was cancelled due to covid.
Her performance this August in Preston Park will be her first in six years.
She will perform at Pride on the Park as Saturday’s main stage headliner and is the first name to be announced from this year’s line up.
This year’s parade has the theme Ravishing Rage, which organisers say is a celebration of resilience, spirit, passion and unity.
Managing Director Paul Kemp said: “We are beyond thrilled to have the global icon Mariah Carey headline Pride on the Park this year. We were so excited to have her join us in 2020 and absolutely gutted the show couldn’t go ahead due to pandemic restrictions that summer.
“Pride is always an amazing weekend of celebration and inclusiveness of our city, and this year is going to be incredibly momentous.
“Our annual community parade will kickstart proceedings and with this year’s theme of Ravishing Rage, we march with unstoppable energy and fearless spirit, turning adversity into triumph. We can’t wait to show you everything that we’ve got planned for Pride ‘25.”
How much is she being paid to perform? Also, is there an update on your stories about the Rainbow Fund?
Oh great. Another straight headliner for pride. Given how many queer artists there are, why do we keep having straight artists headlining? Year after year it’s like being subjected to the record collection of a gay man with shit taste from the 1990s. Why don’t you let the lesbians choose the music for once? We have much better taste!
The word ‘queer’ is so disgusting. And don’t give me the tired ‘reclaiming it’ excuse. You try growing up being scared of being called queer and you’d never want to grow up and embrace the word.
I thought that “queer” is now the officially approved term to cover all LGBTQIA+ groups and is regularly used at Pride?
Not by everybody.
Some of us still hate that word, because the ‘q’ word to some gay men is like the ‘n’ word to black people.
I’d also question what is a ‘queer artist’ ? For sure the name might be part of self-ID for some people, like a club membership.
It’s a bit of a generational thing. Growing up in the 1990s we were called gay and lesbian as terms of abuse. Queer doesn’t have those connotations for us, whereas gay and lesbian do, and LGBTQ sounds more like a STD than a way to love. Not forcing you to use it, but you need to respect other people’s choice of self description. I like queer because it is so open and encompasses all sexual dissidents rather than endlessly dividing us into categories
If I go up to someone and say “I’m gay” or “I’m homosexual” that feels ok and is a lot more accepted than in the past I honestly would never go up to someone and say ‘Hello I’m a queer.”
The word ‘queer’ is so disgusting. And don’t give me the tired ‘reclaiming it’ excuse. You try growing up being scared of being called queer and you’d never want to grow up and embrace the word.
Bunch of old gay men nitpicking terminology rather than engaging with the substance of the comment which is asking why pride is so dominated by men and their culture while women and our culture are marginalised. Not surprising really. I encounter far more misogyny on the scene than in straight society. Women have been complaining about this for decades. Sort it out!
It makes sense that if they were terms of abuse that were thrown at you, you wouldn’t use them. I’m not asking you too! But personally it would feel weird to me if I introduced myself as gay (a bit male), lesbian (bit porny) or homosexual (too scientific). I tend to introduce myself as queer or as a dyke. Each to their own. No reason that the terms we use for ourselves can’t be as varied as the ways we love
I respect what you are saying – but it’s also odd that you say the terms ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’ are terms of abuse for you.
I guess each generation needs to reclaim the words they/we find offensive.
My problem with the Q word is when it’s used on news stories, like on the BBC. They tend to use it because they want to sound on-side, and yet they don’t.
Mind you, I’ve been called worse. Someone called me fat the other day.
😂
I guess what it is pointing to is it was never really about the words. The generation above were called oscars and pansies, your generation were called queers and poofs and my generation were called gay or homo. The words change but the hate/fear of us was the same
A key aim is to show that we’re just the same as others but have different sexual preferences from a heterosexual. How can we do that if going around saying we’re queer.
That’s interesting and I think it maybe points to the different perspectives we have around the politics of sexuality. My sexual politics isn’t particularly about being seen as the same, or being accepted into heterosexual society on its terms. I find the kinda of politics from the 1970s like the gay liberation front more exciting when they saw the potential of dissident sexualities to disrupt and transform society.
It’s a good and healthy thing that there are a range of different politics in the community and not surprising given how many different scenes and cultures there are. The kind of crowds that go to the bulldog are very different to those who go to revenge, or those that went to subline or the Marlborough. Which brings me back to my original point that it is really boring that year after year pride foregrounds only one of these scenes and straight artists. Queer/gay/LGBTQ/*your word of choice* culture is gloriously varied and diverse. Isn’t it time we showed off some more of what we got to offer?
I think if you look at the event as a whole and not just main stage, it’s a good representation of what entertainment our community has to offer. It’s not all about what’s on main stage. There’s the DJs and cabaret tent for example. You could make an argument as to why the headliners rarely seem to be male performers (regardless of sexuality).
More important, why does the event need these big names? I live by the park and I’m always amazed by the number of people seen leaving the park well before the headline act is due to perform.
I am absolutely 100% with you that we don’t need big names. Your first comment was spot on. How much money are we paying them and how much is this driving the extortionate ticket prices which means the event is not accessible for so many people in the community? I also think they attract a lot of people who just see it as a music festival. Over the last decade pride has just got too much. Town is unpleasant to be in. It feels very straight, very drunken and the atmosphere gets unpleasant and aggressive, and frequently homophobic. Over the last decade I’ve had 3 friends who have been attacked. I’ve never known anyone who has been punched on a different day of the year in the city, just on pride. It definitely feels like we have gone wrong somewhere if this is the day that feels least safe in the city.
I think it does matter who the headliners are and who is depicted in marketing etc. when we keep focussing on one demographic. It would just be nice if one year we said dykes and bears to the front!
I know that people like Mariah and Britney are gay icons for some, but growing up in the 90s Mariah and Britney were also icons of a normative and very straight version of femininity. It would be like inviting some of the uber heterosexual masculine figures from your youth. Let’s invite some real gay icons like Skunk Anansie or Jimmy Somerville. Or maybe ask the kids who they want to see to help us out of this pit of nostalgia!
My complaints are also Mariah specific. Now firmly in my middle age and secure in my identity I can appreciate that Britney makes some good tunes, but I just don’t get Mariah. I fear that if I live a bad life I will spend eternity in a place with Mariah on repeat!
I keep trying to find out how much these headliners are being paid but never get the answer. It obviously attracts people who aren’t members of our community. Where else can you go and see Carey, Spears and Kylie for example for the money that Pride charges for admittance to the park? Plus there’s all the other attractions up there to attend.
It is an event that is far too large. If half of what is on offer was put on it’d still be a memorable weeekend. It’d cause a lot less disruption if the route of the march could be changed. If it could approach Preston Park from the north, east or west, then areas such as the sea front and particularly North Street and London Road wouldn’t be affected.
Then there’s the thorny subject of the Rainbow Fund who are still in trouble with the Charity Commission who told me this week: “I can confirm that I am currently engaging with the charity and assessing all the regulatory concerns that have been raised, to provide a regulatory outcome.”
I’ve probably been on more Pride marches than others writing here – although technically I’m not a ‘Pride Veteran’ as my first march was in 1975, and in London, and I was spat at. Brighton Pride have my full support, even though it’s the march and parade I prefer, over the concert in the park. Brighton would not be Brighton without the whole event as is. I don’t got to the park for any headline act, but to be part of something special.
The Preston park event has become a major summer festival, a money-spinner for the local economy, and it’s terrific news they can get international names as the headline act. The headline act has to get everyone going at the end of a long day, and it helps that Mariah Carey has had 18 number one hits.
It’s also good that a booking first made under the lost Covid years has been revived.
Do we care about what she is being paid? No, because a successful festival raises a lot of money, increasing the funds left over for local charity use. The headline act is what gets the event international publicity.
Are we concerned she’s not from the LGBTQ+ family? No, because plenty of the previous headliners have been, plus there are always plenty of LGBTQ+ performers on the day, whether they are out or not.
It seems to me there are still a lot of lesbian performers who, even in 2025, choose not to out themselves, due to commercial pressures. (Can we coax KD Lang out of retirement, for next year? I guess we all have our list of personal preferences.)
As far as ‘Queer’ performers go, maybe we need a Q-space marquee, just like we have a drag tent and a dance space for the disco bunnies. A proper festival has a range of stalls and stages and niche attractions, and Pride in recent years has been no different. It’s the only Pride festival in the UK that works on this scale and we should be proud of it, rather than the constant knockings.
Music taste is also a personal thing, and I won’t be in the park to just see Mariah Carey, any more than I was there just to see Britney. But we wait to see who else is on the list of performers this year. In truth, those names are not why we are there anyway.
I hope society, for the most part, has evolved beyond spitting at people different to them. One of the things I love about this city is its acceptance of people from all walks of life.
Still a fair amount of homophobia and transphobia in Brighton though.
Depends on your definition of phobias. For me it is an unnatural fear or loathing of something such as spiders or snakes. Seems today it is more about having an opinion on subject that differs from activists. For myself I have no fear about transexuals. I just don’t believe that someone can change their biological sex. Does that make me trandphobic?
I wonder if Coca Cola will be sponsors this year after the problems in 2024. Amazing that Sian Berry MP actually condoned and congratulated those who stopped the Coca Cola float last year. Hopefully, she won’t be attending the event this year.
As for Pride, there doesn’t ever seem to be a great deal for people aged over 60. Perhaps the cabaret tent but not a great deal more than that.