The 40th MTV Video Music Awards celebrated some of today’s biggest names and songs, as well as the show’s own storied history.
The star-studded affair, broadcast from the UBS Arena in New York late Wednesday, featured several hours’ worth of presentations and performances — including from pop stars Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, rap legend LL Cool J and the evening’s host, Megan Thee Stallion.
Those were interspersed with flashbacks of some of the award show’s most iconic moments, such as Madonna’s 1984 “Like a Virgin" performance, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley kissing onstage in 1994, Taylor Swift’s 2009 rendition of “You Belong With Me” and Miley Cyrus twerking with Robin Thicke in 2013.
Some of the performances paid tribute to that history: One of Megan Thee Stallion’s outfit changes saw her take the stage draped in a live snake, a la Britney Spears’ 2001 “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance (she seemed eager to shed it, though).
And Eminem opened the show with a medley of hits accompanied by a mob of Slim Shady-lookalikes, in a scene reminiscent of his 2000 performance. He picked up two trophies, bringing his career total to 15 — the most VMAs of any male artist.
Swift took home seven awards, the most of any artist, to bring her overall total to 30 VMAs — and tied Beyonce’s record.
Here’s a look at some of the night's highlights and biggest winners.
Taylor Swift swept, again
Swift took home the top award, video of the year, for “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone. It’s the third year in a row she’s won in that category, after “Anti-Hero” in 2023 and “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” in 2022.
She also won artist of the year for the second year in a row. That makes her the first artist to win the award twice, the Washington Post reports.
Swift made headlines in several acceptance speeches throughout the night.
She began the first by honoring the victims of 9/11, calling that “the most important thing about today.”
In her final speech, she shouted out her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. While their relationship has played out extremely publicly, it was a rare shout-out by Swift that drew sustained applause from the audience.
“Something that I’ll always remember is that when I would finish a take, and I’d say, ‘Cut,’ and we’d be done with that take, I would always just hear someone like cheering and like [going], ‘Whoo!’ from across the studio where we were shooting it, and that one person was my boyfriend, Travis,” she said as the crowd roared. “Everything this man touches turns to happiness and fun and magic. So I want to thank him for adding that to our shoot, because I’ll always remember that.”
Swift closed her speech by thanking the fans who voted for her, and urging people over 18 to register to vote for “something else that’s very important: our presidential election.”
Swift’s Instagram endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just the previous night drove over 300,000 visitors to the voter registration website Vote.gov, as NPR has reported.
Best new artist Chappell Roan gave a fiery performance
Chappell Roan, the 26-year-old Midwestern pop star whose rise this year has been nothing short of meteoric, won the award for best new artist at her VMA debut.
She dedicated it to the drag artists who inspire her, in an acceptance speech read straight from her diary.
“Thank you to the people who are fans, who listen to me, who hear me when I share my joy and my tears,” she said. “And for all the queer kids in the Midwest watching right now, I see you. I understand you, because I’m one of you. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t be exactly who you want to be.”
At another point, Roan — clad in a suit of armor and armed with a lit crossbow — performed her latest hit, “Good Luck Babe,” as backup dancers dressed as knights battled onstage in front of a burning castle.
She was introduced by drag queen Sasha Colby, who called her “my daughter” and “your favorite drag queen’s favorite artist” — a phrase of hers that Roan quoted at her now-famous Coachella performance earlier this year.
Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ is crowned
Sabrina Carpenter, whose pop hits helped define the sounds of summer, accepted the award for her song “Espresso.”
She thanked her fans, family, pets, team members and “that me espresso,” a line from the song.
Earlier in the night, Carpenter performed a risque medley of her summer singles “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Espresso,” while dancing with an astronaut (aka the MTV “Moonperson”) and a blue alien — whom she kissed passionately at one point.
Gymnast Jordan Chiles gets her bronze …
… from rapper and Olympic hype man Flavor Flav, who presented the award for best collaboration.
Chiles, whose bronze medal in the women’s floor exercise final was revoked in August following a scoring appeal by Romanian officials, appeared alongside Flav to introduce the award but was instead surprised with one of her own.
Flavor Flav, whose turn as an official hype man for the Olympic U.S. women’s water polo team won them all admirers over the summer, presented Chiles with a bronze clock necklace (his signature accessory dating back to his Public Enemy days in the 1980s) that he'd revealed on social media earlier this summer.
“I know they tried to take your medal away from you, but you know what? I got you something that they can't take away from you," he said, placing it around her neck as the crowd roared.
Chiles smiled and shook her head in disbelief, responding, “I don’t even know what to say here.”
Chiles spoke publicly about the medal incident for the first time earlier that same day, at the Forbes Power Women's Summit. She said she felt that “everything that has gone on, it’s not about the medal, it’s about my skin color,” adding that it made her feel voiceless and disillusioned.
“The biggest thing that was taken from me was that it was the recognition of who I was,” she said. “Not just my sport, but the person I am.”
Katy Perry accepts the Video Vanguard Award with a trip through her discography
Katy Perry performed a nearly 10-minute mashup of her greatest hits — including “E.T.”, “Dark Horse,” “Teenage Dream,” “California Gurls,” “I Kissed A Girl” and “Firework,” while alternately suspended midair, dancing atop a piano and wearing giant butterfly wings.
She also accepted the Video Vanguard Award, which recognizes lifetime achievement.
“I did that all on the first day of my period, can you believe it?” Perry joked after accepting the honor from her partner, Orlando Bloom, as the AP reports. “There are so many things that have to align to have a long and successful career as an artist. There are no decade-long accidents.”
LL Cool J celebrates 40 years of Def Jam Recordings
Toward the end of the ceremony, rap pioneer LL Cool J — who released his first album in over a decade last week — took to the stage to honor 40 years of the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings.
He was joined by Flavor Flav and Chuck D of Public Enemy, one of the label’s most iconic artists, for a medley of hits including “Going Back to Cali” and “Bring The Noise” that got the crowd to its feet.
LL Cool J, the first rap artist to win the Video Vanguard Award, in 1997, has a long history with the VMAs.
He told NPR’s Morning Edition last week that he doesn’t see his long-awaited new album, The FORCE, as a comeback:
“How are you going to call it a comeback when I've been here for years, man?”
Here’s the full list of winners:
- Video of the year: Taylor Swift
- Artist of the year: Taylor Swift
- Song of the year: Sabrina Carpenter — “Espresso”
- Best new artist: Chappell Roan
- MTV PUSH performance of the year: Le Sserafim — “Easy”
- Best collaboration: Taylor Swift ft. Post Malone — “Fortnight”
- Best pop: Taylor Swift
- Best hip-hop: Eminem — “Houdini”
- Best R&B: SZA — “Snooze”
- Best alternative: Benson Boone — “Beautiful Things”
- Best rock: Lenny Kravitz — “Human”
- Best Latin: Anitta — “Mil Veces”
- Best K-pop: Lisa — “Rockstar”
- Best Afrobeats: Tyla — “Water”
- Video for good: Billie Eilish — “What Was I Made For (From The Motion Picture “Barbie”)
- Best direction: Taylor Swift ft. Post Malone – “Fortnight”
- Best cinematography: Ariana Grande — “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)”
- Best visual effects: Eminem — “Houdini”
- Best choreography: Dua Lipa — “Houdini”
- Best art direction: Megan Thee Stallion — “BOA”
- Best editing: Taylor Swift ft. Post Malone – “Fortnight”
- Best trending video: Megan Thee Stallion ft. Yuki Chiba – “Mamushi”
- Best group: Seventeen
- Song of summer: Taylor Swift ft. Post Malone – “Fortnight”
- VMAs most iconic performance: Katy Perry — “Roar”
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