Gaga's Exit, Sabrina's Trans Rights Sign

What does the morning after the VMAs feel like? A splitting headache for Van Toffler, producer of the 2025 show, which aired on CBS for the first time, in addition to MTV and Paramount+. The veteran television producer and former head of MTV has had a front-row seat to dozens of awards shows, and he knows the intricacies and complications involved with coordinating 13 performances.

Toffler spoke with Rolling Stone about the night’s standout moments, including Mariah Carey‘s hits medley, Sabrina Carpenter‘s rain-soaked “Tears,” Lady Gaga‘s rapid exit from Madison Square Garden, and the emotional tribute to Ozzy Osbourne featuring Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Yungblud, and Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt.

What are the challenges these days with award shows? You need to get the big-name talent, but you also need to showcase who’s coming up. And these productions are very expensive. How do you weigh all those things to get the best lineup?
The first thing is you have to be is rabid about researching and understanding who your audience is. And for this show, unlike others, it traversed multiple platforms with different demographics because you have MTV, CBS, and Paramount+. That really merited going from hit iconic artists with catalogs to brand-new artists.

You saw LL Cool J host in the first act, and then introduce Kenny G performing with Doja Cat into the expanded play stage with Lola Young. And you have Gaga in between winning an award. So that’s kind of a microcosm of what you’d like to do, where you bring out new acts with emerging songs. You don’t just spring them on the audience.

Talents like Sombr and Conan Gray and Megan Moroney are so wonderful that you want to expose them on the big stage. But you can’t just have a show of new acts, just like you can’t just have a show of established acts. It is a balance. Who’s got the biggest songs of the year, like Sabrina [Carpenter] and Tate [McRae], who are great performers, and who are some heritage acts that get these iconic awards? It definitely is a delicate dance.

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And also, where do you format them in the show? How you juxtapose one versus the other? It’s a mixture of art and science, because you also have to see the performances and rehearsals to understand. “Does this go next to this one?”

Were there people you wanted to get that you couldn’t get?
Oh, undoubtedly, absolutely.

Justin Bieber? Taylor Swift?
Beyoncé, Bieber … Taylor’s not in cycle, so, you know, she’s done so many MTV awards when she is in cycle. It just didn’t feel right. But Miley’s putting out new music, and … I’m trying to think of others that I would have loved to have had. I wanted to have Harry Styles and Stevie Nicks perform together. So, you know, you shoot for the moon. Some people are recording or out of cycle. You pull together the best show you can, and the best of the year.

With the Sabrina Carpenter performance, there seemed to be some messaging in her staging. Were you aware of that?
Oh, yeah, definitely. There was messaging, and then there was a sexy performance with water. So I’m not sure it all got through, but I’m sure her fans will read well into it, accurately and inaccurately.

Was it intentional to cut away from the “trans rights” sign?
No, no, I think it’s just a director making choices. That’s all.

It was so interesting that therapy got so many shout-outs during the show. These kids who have so much pressure, I don’t know how they get through a day, never mind the VMAs.
We noticed it. It is generational that so many of these young artists would thank their therapists. So many of these artists are confronted with daily pressures to make their lives seem great. And they have to live on socials. There’s no real downtime. And we talked about it. I can imagine 20 years ago, artists thanking their therapist would be like, “You’re in therapy, dude? Are you kidding me?” So it is definitely generational.

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It was cool that Ariana Grande read out all the credits of her video. I’ve never seen that happen before.
I can honestly say in my memory, and I don’t have a good one, but that may be the only time craft services have been thanked.

That really meant a lot, actually, from an industry standpoint. It was very smart.
She doesn’t come out a lot. She really doesn’t do a lot of these things, and she’s filming a movie. I think obviously she was nominated a lot, but she’s got a warm spot for Mariah. I think that helped bring her out to this stage.

What was up with the microphone? It wasn’t one that drops into the stage and adjusts for height?
Not all productions go smoothly. I think that her mic was definitely too high. We used a lot of handheld mics. Those mics on stands tend to get in the way of a performer’s face. We don’t love them, but obviously we needed them for the award presentations. But it’s a lesson learned. We’ll have it come from the ceiling next time, if there is a next time.

It’s a legit situation. We did an article in Variety where we talked to stage hands about it. Sometimes you have a LeBron James and then Sabrina Carpenter. The height difference is massive.
Oh, my God. You really need to overprepare for that stuff. The thing is, someone like Steven Tyler just keeps adjusting his mic, no matter where you put it. It’s never the right height, let’s put it that way.

You know who wasn’t good at holding a microphone? Meg Stalter. That microphone hit her entire face.
I think she maybe had an issue with her ankle beforehand and was having trouble walking. She had a rough evening. But she’s funny. She’s a funny woman.

Tell me about coordinating Gaga and getting her out to Long Island from Madison Square Garden.
God, what a shit show. She had to leave the Garden, come to our event. She literally got to the security door, I don’t know, three minutes before the show started.

And obviously, she had to glam up, get in that ensemble, and then get onstage when she won the award. Then she had to have a police escort take her back to the Garden. They delayed the start of her show at MSG the prior night. So it was a logistical situation.

How did you handle the singing live versus singing to a track with all the dancing? Mariah especially seemed to get some flak for that.
That’s a dealer’s choice in a way. In no way do we dictate what an artist should or can or can’t do. Quite often there’s tracks and they sing along to a track or a live band. It’s really what the artist thinks they’re capable of doing based on the dancing they’re doing and the physical movement they’re doing. Some are more comfortable with the tracks. Some are just more comfortable doing live because they tour a lot. That’s really on the artist.

Which performance took the longest to put together or was most challenging logistically?
Probably the most tender and rewarding one was the Ozzy tribute. You’ve got a family in mourning. You’ve got an iconic musician. You’ve got people that you may think are appropriate or disciples of Black Sabbath and Ozzy, but that’s not what Ozzy would have felt or the family would have felt. And so there was a lot of coordination with the family on the musicians and the songs that were selected. That probably was, again, the most rewarding and the most arduous one of the bunch.

Did you hear from the family in the last 12 hours?
No, but I know that Jack, on behalf of Sharon and the family, was really happy with the musicians and understanding what tracks they were doing. I haven’t heard from them after the fact, but they were all involved in the process.

I really thought that looked tremendous. There was this one shot of Yungblud where he was bending over that could not have been choreographed any better with the the lights and the guitars. It was incredible.
I may be completely off-base on this, but as a person who loves music and has been around music most of my life, people are yearning for a live rock moment. Look at the fervor around Oasis. I was around when we tried to break Oasis in the States and no one gave a crap. And now it’s euphoric.

What else was complicated or involved a lot of feedback from the artist creatively?
Tate McRae had a bunch of different elements, but the heavy use of water and cleaning the stage with Sabrina was a big, big lift. And Doja Cat’s set was kind of funky to turn around. And then particularly when we told everyone, “Oh, Kenny G’s going to be on the staircase.” They’re kind of like, “What?” That’s the way we felt too. But, hey, that’s just almost a perfect combo of artists, Doja Cat and Kenny G. That’s kind of what should happen every day.

2025 VMAs producer Van Toffler

Rich Fury/Invision/AP

I’m sure every time they’re like, “We’d like 22 dancers,” you’re like, “Stop with the dancers!”
Right. This may seem critical, but even for some of the younger artists, if you’ve got the chops and the songs and you can sing, just come on and sing, right? You don’t have to create a music video. When you perform, I think it’s good enough to show the world you’ve got the chops.

Did you hear from the people about the ICE commercials and the Department of Corrections ones?
Yeah, someone told me. Was it one that led right into the show?

It felt like almost every other break was an ICE commercial or Department of Corrections. It felt like the police state was here.
This is on CBS and local TV.

Yeah.
Obviously, I have no idea or nor do I control any of the commercials. But that doesn’t make me feel good.

What’s a successful VMAs to you? Is it ratings? Is it the feedback? What is it?
Where does it register in the cultural zeitgeist? Are there memorable performances? Are there moments people talk about? For me, what is maybe most important is, “Is it connecting to audiences?” And not just on linear TV. I think we’re probably gonna find out later today that there are over a billion views of VMA content. Let me say that again, one billion views. That is astronomical, maybe the biggest in history if that’s the case.

It’s hard to get a 15-year-old to watch linear television, no matter what you do. You can have a live execution. They’re not gonna watch it. They’re gonna watch what they wanna watch on the platforms that they connect with on their mobile or YouTube.

Gaga’s Exit, Sabrina’s Trans Rights Sign

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