Kanye West’s humiliation of Taylor Swift and other controversial moments from the VMAs

Over the course of 40 years, the MTV Video Music Awards have established themselves as the most influential and highly anticipated event in the music industry. Although it still lacks the prestige of the Grammys, and despite the fact that the impact of its TV channel’s hosting pales every day in the face of the rise of digital content, triumphing on the MTV stage is still a one-way ticket to international pop stardom. Aware of this, artists like Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, or Miley Cyrus have saved their most epic and controversial shows for the occasion. In the absence of knowing if rising stars like Sabrina Carpenter, Karol G, or Lisa will follow in their footsteps on September 11, EL PAÍS reviews the most controversial appearances in MTV VMA history to give an idea of where the bar is set.

Madonna deflowers MTV

The Queen of Pop opened the first Video Music Awards in 1984 with a seminal and historic performance, which guaranteed the continuity and influence of the awards from then on. Dressed as a punk bride and descending from a giant cake, she shocked the audience with a hypersexual choreography to offer a first preview of an album that would be released a couple of months later. At the end of her performance, her manager apparently “looked pale” and assured Madonna that she had just ruined her career. He was wrong: Like a Virgin was the first big global hit of her majestic trajectory.

Lady Gaga’s raw beef dress

Not content with having hung herself, bloodied, on stage the previous year, the star decided to double down at the 2010 Video Music Awards. Eighteen kilos of Argentine red meat went into shaping Gaga’s most unforgettable look; a dress made of raw flank steaks, a matching headdress and a bag that she left in Cher’s hands while collecting her award. “I’m not a piece of meat,” she said about the symbolism of an outfit strongly criticized by the animal rights organization PETA. A week earlier, the singer had appeared on the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan wearing a bikini also made of beef, so she decided to repeat the move in front of millions of viewers. The design, designed by Argentine Franc Fernandez, passed through the hands of a taxidermist and today is preserved in perfect condition in Gaga’s museum in Las Vegas. The influence of the look led to it earning its own Wikipedia page.

Miley Cyrus’ twerk

Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Will Smith… The shocked faces in the audience at the 2013 VMAs spoke for themselves. The erotic performance by Miley Cyrus to perform her hit We Can’t Stop, accompanied by the already infamous Robin Thicke, shocked spectators as they watched the singer bury her Disney star status forever. “Embarrassing,” “rude,” “strip club-worthy,” and “worrying” are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press dedicated to the performance. Cyrus admitted last year that she had to start going to therapy to deal with all the hate she received. “I carried some guilt and shame around myself for years because of how much controversy and upset I really caused. Now that I’m an adult, I realise how harshly I was judged. I was harshly judged as a child by adults and now, as an adult, I realise that I would never harshly judge a child,” she told the British edition of Vogue magazine.

Kanye’s humiliation of Taylor Swift

“He’s an idiot,” said the president of the United States when asked his opinion on the episode that shocked the country on September 13, 2009. The controversial rapper managed to irk Barack Obama himself after he stormed onto the stage of the Video Music Awards, snatched Swift’s microphone, and shouted to the audience that the award for Best Female Video of the Year should have gone to Beyoncé. Broken from grief after the incident — MTV president Van Toffler found her “desperately crying in the dressing room next to her mother” — the singer recovered to become the biggest pop phenomenon of the century, shattering all records in the music industry. Kanye, for his part, remains determined to be just “an idiot.”

Queen Madonna kisses her pop princesses

Considered by Rolling Stone magazine as the most scandalous moment in the history of the VMAs — and by Stevie Nicks as the “most disgusting” — the Queen of Pop wanted to pay tribute to her celebrated performance of Like a Virgin 20 years earlier with another golden chapter of pop culture: kissing her successors Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, dressed as brides. The producers of the show made sure to maximize the sensationalism with a lingering shot of a sad-faced Justin Timberlake, Britney’s ex-boyfriend, which meant viewers did not see Madonna kiss Christina Aguilera, who asked the network to re-edit the performance so as not to be left out. Although the original idea came from Madonna herself, MTV encouraged it to provide the necessary spice after the previous edition was marked by sober tributes to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. A curiosity: Jennifer Lopez was originally chosen to accompany Madonna and Britney, but the Bronx native backed out of the plan at the last minute because she was filming the movie Shall We Dance?

Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s forced kiss

As if they were a newly formed royal couple, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ only daughter, publicly presented their newly certified marriage at the start of the 1994 gala. “Nobody thought this would last,” Jackson said before planting a passionate kiss on her. Lisa Marie’s discomfort was so visible that years later she confirmed that she did not want her then-husband to even “touch” her, with the couple already immersed in a crisis. A few months later, they divorced amid accusations that their relationship had been a publicity stunt.

Britney’s python

Paying homage to Salma Hayek’s entrance in From Dusk Till Dawn, Britney Spears shocked the audience by appearing on stage with an albino python during the performance of her single I’m A Slave 4 U at the 2001 edition. Her intention was to leave behind the innocent image of her early days and appear more sensual and transgressive, and she succeeded. Although she admits that it was one of her favorite career moments, in her memoir The Woman In Me she confesses to how scared she felt during the performance: “In my head I was saying: ‘Just sing, move your legs and sing.’ But what nobody knows is that while I was singing, the snake put its head right in front of my face and started sticking its tongue out at me.”

Beyoncé's pregnancy

Before social media monopolized the most intimate celebrity announcements, even an awards gala could be a suitable setting to announce the imminent arrival of a baby. This must have been what Beyoncé thought, as the superstar took advantage of the 2011 VMAs to look at the camera, unbutton her glamorous jacket at the end of her performance of Love on Top, and reveal an incipient belly. “I want you to feel the love that is growing inside me,” she said. Today, her first-born, Blue Ivy, is already accompanying her as a dancer on her world tour.

The rage of Rage Against the Machine

In 2000, the rivalry between Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit divided fans of the rock metal genre and the members of both bands, who hurled all kinds of insults at each other. It was a confrontation that was on the verge of crossing all limits when the latter won the award for Best Rock Video of the year. Tim Commerford, upset by the defeat of Rage’s video clip — directed by Michael Moore and which forced the doors of Wall Street to close due to the riots it caused — showed his annoyance by climbing to the top of a structure that presided over the set to protest the acceptance speech. Commerford ended up being arrested and spent a night in jail. The leader of Rage Against the Machine, Zach de la Rocha, was so angry with his partner’s behavior that he dissolved the band a few weeks later.

Diana Ross’ indiscretion

The legendary Supremes vocalist was tasked with presenting the award for Best Hip-Hop Video at the 1999 VMAs. She was accompanied on stage by Mary J. Blige and Lil’ Kim, the latter opting for a more-than-daring look for the occasion: a violet jumpsuit matching her wig that left her left breast exposed, covered only by a nipple cover. So daring was the neckline that Ross, live, did not hesitate to give his partner’s chest a little shake, which was greeted by cheers from the audience.

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