Diana Ross presents Dick Clark Award for Excellence to Taylor Swift

"I'm really so happy to be here in your energy. It is so amazing. It's so exciting. I am really, really excited about being here. It's wonderful," Ross said after the audience gave her a standing ovation.

"When I was really young, when we started out in the industry, it was Dick Clark who made it possible for us to be on radio and on television -- American Bandstand. So, you all know who Dick Clark is. Dick Clark has made it possible for us to be here at the AMAs, the American Music Awards, and it is just really so wonderful to see you. ... He opened doors for us. He was a trailblazer. He was a legend and he made it possible for us to have the kinds of careers that you guys are having today. So many opportunities. I am excited tonight to be present and to be able to open for the first time, the Dick Clark Award for Excellence."

Ross then introduced Swift as someone who had "taken the music industry by storm and we've fallen in love with her."

"She's really talented and beautiful," Ross added.

"I am so blown away to have just received an award from Diana Ross -- who just over the course of her career stood up for herself so many times in a time when it was not popular for a woman to stand up for herself. I am so honored. Thank you for coming. You're beautiful," the 24-year-old country and pop music star told Ross. "Dick Clark was a visionary. He fought for music to be at the forefront of our minds and on our televisions as much as possible. I am so unbelievably ecstatic that his family chose to honor me and that the AMAs chose to honor me with this."

Clark was a radio and television host and producer who died in 2012 at the age of 82. He created the American Music Awards ceremony for ABC in 1973.

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