Pink: 7 reasons she deserves her Brit Award for outstanding achievement

Pop star Pink will be honoured with the outstanding contribution prize at the Brit Awards later this month.

The US singer, who will close the ceremony with a performance, said she was "humbled to receive this honour".

She is only the second international act to receive the prize, after U2 in 2001.

Other past recipients include David Bowie, Queen, Oasis, Fleetwood Mac, Pet Shop Boys and the Spice Girls - but it hasn't been handed out since 2012.

Pink arrived in the late 1990s with a radio-friendly R&B sound similar to TLC, Destiny's Child and Toni Braxton.

But she formed her own identity as a pop-punk rebel: tattooed, outspoken and willing to tackle topics like drug addiction and domestic abuse in the confines of mainstream pop music.

The news of her Brit Award comes days after the singer, born Alecia Moore, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Here are seven reasons why she deserves the accolade.

Since she started performing in Philadelphia clubs at the age of 14, Pink has always sung live, proclaiming time and again that she has "never-ever" lip synced.

"I'm 100% against it," she stated after the 2010 Grammys, where she'd belted out the hit song Glitter In The Air while performing death-defying aerial acrobatics.

"I'm actually better at singing upside down than I am right side up," she said. "I'm like nervous when I have to look at people, and then I'm upside down and I'm doing my thing and I'm like, 'This is nothing!'"

Since Pink proposed to motorcross champion Carey Hart in 2005, their relationship has had more twists and turns than a Curly Wurly - but the star has been refreshingly candid about it all.

Their first Thanksgiving was a disaster. Drunk by noon, Pink tipped a bowl of sweet potatoes over her future father-in-law's head then accidentally set fire to her bedroom, got in a huge argument with her fiance and slashed his tyres with a carving knife. She still has 13 stitches in her hand.

When the couple separated in 2008, she turned it into a hit single, So What, whose opening lines went: "I guess I just lost my husband/I don't know where he went".

And she convinced him to appear in the video without telling him what the song was about.

Known for her androgynous style, Pink has been a long-time advocate of LGBT rights. She included a same-sex marriage in the video for her 2010 video Raise Your Glass, and later marched against Prop 8, the proposition to ban gay marriage.

Speaking to Gaydar radio in 2012, she expressed her commitment to the cause, saying: "I think that the best day will be when we no longer talk about being gay or straight - it's not a 'gay wedding' it's just a 'wedding', it's not a 'gay marriage' it's just 'a marriage'.

She continued: "It's not a 'black man' or 'white woman', it's just 'a man' and 'a woman' or 'a human' and 'a human'. I'd just like to get to that."

Accepting MTV's Vanguard award in 2017, Pink told a moving story about her daughter, Willow, who was worried she was ugly.

In response, Pink made a PowerPoint presentation about self-acceptance, including pictures of "androgynous rock stars and artists that live their truth and are probably made fun of every day of their life, and carry on and wave their flag and inspire the rest of us", from Michael Jackson and David Bowie to Annie Lennox, Prince and Elton John.

Pink added advice from her own experiences: "When people make fun of me, that's what they use. They say I look like a boy or I'm too masculine or I have too many opinions or my body is too strong.

"And I said, do you see me growing my hair? 'No, Mama.' Do you see me changing my body? 'No, Mama.' Do you see me changing the way I present myself to the world? 'No, Mama.' Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world? 'Yes, Mama.'

"So baby girl, we don't change," Pink told her daughter, who was watching from the audience. "We take the gravel and a shell, and we make a pearl. And we help other people to change so they can see more kinds of beauty."

Willow recently duetted with her mum on a cover of A Million Dreams, from the hit movie The Greatest Showman.

Meanwhile, she's been very open about her experience as a working mum - even sharing photos of her pumping breast milk while getting made up for a show.

Pink was one of four voices on the hit cover version of Labelle's Lady Marmalade in 2001 - but she made sure she got the part she wanted.

Recalling the recording sessions, she said record label executive Ron Fair walked into the studio and said: "What's the high part? What's the most singing part? Christina [Aguilera] is going to take that part."

She explained: "I stood up and I said, 'Hi, how are you? So nice of you to introduce yourself. I'm Pink. She will not be taking that part. I think that's what this [expletive] meeting is about'."

Pink and Christina beefed for several years - even coming to blows at one point - but they made up when they worked together on The Voice US.

"I hadn't seen her in years and years. We grew up and we hugged it out, it's that simple," Pink told Andy Cohen in 2017.

In the intervening years, Pink used her voice to protest about the way women are pitted against each other.

After Lady Gaga was criticised for supposedly copying her high-wire act at the 2017 Super Bowl, Pink defended her, using the hashtag #womensupportingwomen.

She also took part in the Women's March and is a huge proponent of reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood.

"Women have to learn how to support each other," she said. "Because it's not taught to us in the playground."

After almost 20 years, Pink has amassed an impressive collection of hits, including three UK number one singles (Lady Marmalade, Just Like A Pill and So What).

In the US, she's second only to Rihanna in terms of artists with the most hits on pop radio, and she's sold more than 42 million albums worldwide.

What's more, there's a song for every mood - from the slam-dunk set opener Get The Party Started to the tear-strewn duet Just Give Me A Reason.

With 32 top 40 hits in the UK, she'll be spoilt for choice when putting together that Brits medley on 20 February.

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