The MTV Video Music Awards took place this Sunday night with a lot of anticipation and expectation surrounding it. Katy Perry hosted the annual awards, where Taylor Swift premiered her new video.
Putting the bad blood behind, right?
Taylor Swift has raised the stakes for Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards.
Swift, who has a long and storied history with the VMAs, premiered the music video for her new single ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ after debuting the song Thursday night.
The new single and a 15-second clip of the video has fans discussing on social media whether Swift is imitating Beyoncé and theorizing that Nicki Minaj is possibly rekindling a past beef with Swift.
Also, the single had fans theorizing that it’s a diss track to Kanye West, and others, such as Katy Perry, who’s hosting the show.
Katy and Taylor’s beef goes back to 2014 when some of Taylor’s dancers left her tour and joined Katy Perry’s ‘Prism Tour.’ After that, some back and forth accusations came from both Katy and Taylor.
The feud was cooled until earlier this summer when Taylor released her music once more on streaming services on the very same day Katy released her new album.
Then, Taylor released her new track last Thursday, and Katy released her ‘Swish Swish‘ video, which is a presumably a diss track to Taylor.
So much drama. On top of that Katy is performing ‘Swish Swish’ along Nicki Minaj on the show.
Nominations and more drama
As if the Perry-Swift drama wasn’t enough, controversy hit MTV when the video for “Despacito” was not nominated. Especially given that it’s currently the most viewed video on YouTube.
MTV officials reportedly said the video for the Spanish-language song by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee hadn’t been submitted for consideration, nor has it aired on MTV or MTV2.
But the remix of the song featuring Justin Bieber is nominated for song of summer at this year’s VMAs.
On a lighter tone, Kendrick Lamar had the most nominations this year, including video of the year for “Humble” and artist of the year. He took 6 awards home last night of the 8 nominations.
Earlier this year, the rapper made his comeback with ‘HUMBLE‘ and it’s been quite a hit. The rapper took the stage and perform a medley of ‘DNA’ and ‘Humble’.
Following Lamar, Katy Perry and The Weeknd are tied for second place with five nominations each.Katy also performed alongside Nicki Minaj her latest collaboration ‘Swish Swish’, while The Weeknd pulled out his performance this year.
Other artists who also performed Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, Shawn Mendes, Lorde, Fifth Harmony with Gucci Mane, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Logic with Khalid, Post Malone and Julia Michaels.
Pink also perform doing a mash-up of her most popular songs. She also gave a heartfelt speech while accepting the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.
Taking a stand
Taking a cue from the non-gendered categories at the 2017 MTV Movie & TV Awards, MTV announced the former best female video and best male video categories have now been combined into ‘artist of the year.’
And that’s not it, the iconic “Moonman” trophy is now a “Moon Person.”
“Why should it be a man? It could be a man, it could be a woman, it could be transgender, it could be nonconformist,” said MTV president Chris McCarthy to the New York Times.
And while MTV took a stand with the new gender equity category, celebrities also took a stand during the ceremony. Especially in their acceptance speeches, as with most award shows.
And MTV has already gotten a head start with one hot button issue.
The network reached out to the military and invited active duty transgender military service members to the show.
“Any patriot who is putting their own life at risk to fight for our freedom and stands for equality is a hero at MTV, and to young people everywhere,” McCarthy said to CNN in a statement.
On Saturday, GLAAD, and SPARTA, an LGBTQ service members and veterans group, announced that six service members would be in attendance.
According to GLAAD, transgender service members Sterling James Crutcher, Logan Ireland, Jennifer Peace and Akira Wyatt, and trans veterans Laila Ireland and Brynn Tannehill walked the VMA red carpet Sunday.
They were accompanied by GLAAD president and chief executive officer Sarah Kate Ellis. August Getty, an LGBTQ philanthropist and fashion designer who also designed Miley Cyrus’s red carpet dress.
A spokesperson for MTV also confirmed that a fourth generation nephew of Confederate general Robert E. Lee assisted.
And Rev. Robert Wright Lee IV, a 24-year-old pastor, will speak out against racial injustice.
Source: CNN