VIDEO: Watch Kelly Ripa's Inspiring GLAAD Media Award Acceptance Speech

GLAAD, the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy organization, honored actress and Emmy Award-winning talk show host Kelly Ripa at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York at the Waldorf Astoria New York on May 9, 2015. Emmy and GLAAD Media Award-winning journalist Anderson Cooper presented Ripa with the award. Cooper previously received GLAAD's Vito Russo Award in 2013.

Below, watch a clip from her moving speech, courtesy of PEOPLE.

GLAAD's Excellence in Media Award is presented to media professionals who have made a significant difference in promoting equality. Previous Excellence in Media Award honorees include Russell Simmons, Tyra Banks, Judy Shepard, Julianne Moore, Glenn Close, Barbara Walters, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Diane Sawyer, Diane Sawyer, and Vanessa Redgrave.

As the co-host of LIVE with Kelly and Michael, Ripa has shared the daily lives of LGBT Americans with morning audiences across the country. By simply talking about her many friends' daily lives and sharing her experiences with viewers, Ripa has become an outspoken ally to the LGBT community. Through her daily morning discussions with co-host Michael Strahan and interviews of LGBT guests and allies, she has voiced, her support of marriage equality, sent messages of hope to LGBT youth, and spoken about the importance of LGBT representations in entertainment media.

In addition to discussing LGBT issues on LIVE, Ripa has participated in GLAAD's Spirit Day campaign to raise awareness about the disproportionate rates of bullying facing LGBT youth. In 2010, when co-hosting the Point Foundation's Point Honors event with friend Andy Cohen, she took the opportunity to send a message of support to LGBT youth, also telling parents around the country to be supporting of their children.

Ripa and her husband Mark Consuelos are also executive producers of Logo's Secret Guide to Fabulous, in which gay co-hosts Rob Younkers, John Gidding, and Theodore Leaf, help everyday people enhance their daily lives. The show's second season premieres this summer.

Prior to co-hosting LIVE, Ripa portrayed Hayley Vaughan on ABC's All My Children. She also starred in Hope & Faith as an unemployed ex-soap star who has to move in with her sister and her family.

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