Lady Gaga, 'Dancing With the Stars' Among GLAAD Award Winners
HBO's "Cinema Verite" and Focus Features' "Pariah" also took home prizes during the New York portion of the watchdog group's 23rd annual kudofest.
Lady Gaga and ABC's Dancing With the Stars topped the winners at Saturday's 23rd annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York.
Hosted by Glee's Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera, awards in 27 of this year's 35 categories were announced during the ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Times Square.
Dancing With the Stars -- which the watchdog group previously lauded for including its first transgender contestant in Chaz Bono -- took home the honors for outstanding reality program, with former contestant Carson Kressley on hand to pick up the prize.
HBO's Cinema Verite -- the miniseries starring Tim Robbins, Diane Lane and James Gandolfini based on the 1973 PBS American Family documentary that featured the first openly gay character on television -- was honored as outstanding TV movie or miniseries.
Focus Features' Pariah, the story of a Brooklyn teen who juggles conflicting identities, collected the prize for outstanding film in limited release, with stars Adepero Oduye and Kim Wayans accepting the award.
On the music side, Gaga got the nod for outstanding music artist for her Interscope Records release Born This Way.
In previously announced honors, Smash guest star and Broadway legend Bernadette Peters and John Stamos presented Smash executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron with the Vito Russo Award, named after one of GLAAD's funders and presented to an openly LGBT media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting LGBT equality.
The Weinstein Co.'s Harvey Weinstein presented a special recognition award to 17-year-old Katy Butler for her work in launching a Change.org campaign to overturn the MPAA's R rating for upcoming bullying documentary Bully.
Additional honorees and awards -- including outstanding comedy and drama series, wide-release film and documentary -- will be presented April 21 in Los Angeles and June 2 in San Francisco. Glee's Dianna Agron will host the latter ceremony, while a host for the Los Angeles event has yet to be announced.
The GLAAD Media Awards fund the organization's efforts to bring stories of LGBT people and issues to Americans. Each year, the events raise nearly $3.5 million for the group.
