Moonlight's Ashton Sanders & Jharrel Jerome Win Best Kiss at MTV Movie & TV Awards: This Represents More Than a Kiss

Their acceptance speech came with a major message

By Samantha Schnurr May 08, 2017 1:27 AMTags

This year's MTV Movie & TV Awards "Best Kiss" acceptance speech came with a major message. 

The annual award was granted this year to Moonlight's Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome, who portrayed two African American teenagers in the Oscar-winning film and shared a secret kiss on the beach. 

"It is OK for us young performers, especially us minority performers, to step out the box...and do whatever it takes to tell the story and do whatever it takes to make a change," Jerome said at the podium as he accepted the golden popcorn alongside his co-star. 

 

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"This award is for us artists who are out there who need to step out the box to do whatever it takes to get people to wake up."

"This award is bigger than Jharrell and I," Sanders continued. "This represents more than a kiss. This is for those that feel like the others, the misfits. This represents us."

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This is the fifth time a same sex kiss has been honored with the award in the show's history, following lip-locks between Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair in Cruel IntentionsJason Biggs and Seann William Scott in American Pie 2Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.

As one fan tweeted about the movie, "This story needed to be told."

Congratulations Ashton and Jharrel!