{"id":638717,"date":"2026-09-28T17:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T17:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/638717\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T17:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T17:34:09","slug":"mtv-vmas-2026-madonna-and-taylor-swift-dominate-awards-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/638717\/","title":{"rendered":"MTV VMAs 2026: Madonna and Taylor Swift dominate awards \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madonna<\/a> and Taylor Swift<\/a> triumphed at the 2026 MTV Video Music awards, with the former winning three trophies and the latter winning the night\u2019s top honour, extending her run as the most-awarded artist in VMAs history.<\/p>\n

In a ceremony that largely awarded female artists, Madonna entered the evening as the most nominated artist of the year with 13 nods and won seven, including three during the telecast: for best collaboration (with Sabrina Carpenter<\/a>), best dance, and artist of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of you were probably not born when I performed at the very first VMAs 43 years ago,\u201d the 68-year-old said while accepting the award for artist of the year, which she won over Swift, Carpenter, Ariana Grande<\/a>, Bruno Mars<\/a> and Morgan Wallen.<\/p>\n

After recalling how she fell and accidentally exposed her rear, threatening her nascent career in a very different media landscape, Madonna ended on a more serious note. \u201cI spent the last year and a half finding myself, believing in myself and really making the music that I wanted to make,\u201d she said. \u201cMy hope for all of you here tonight is that you \u2026 do the same. Find yourself and believe in yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madonna, whose provocative performances in the 1980s helped cement the VMAs as a can\u2019t-miss cultural event, opened the show at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles with her first VMAs performance in 23 years, the first since her infamous onstage kiss with Britney Spears<\/a> in 2003.<\/p>\n

She performed two songs from this summer\u2019s Confessions II: Bring Your Love<\/a> with Carpenter, and a intricate, lively rendition of Danceteria, her tribute to New York\u2019s 1980s club scene, with Charli XCX and a who\u2019s who of background dancers including Julia Garner, the actor who was cast to play Madonna in a long-gestating biopic that was cancelled after a \u201cfalling out\u201d with Universal Studios.<\/p>\n

Swift won three categories, including the night\u2019s top honour \u2013 video of the year \u2013 for The Fate of Ophelia, and the inaugural artist director honours. The new award, to celebrate \u201cgroundbreaking music artists whose work behind the camera has expanded the possibilities of music video\u201d, honoured Swift\u2019s status as the most-decorated music video director in the show\u2019s history, as well as its most-awarded solo artist.<\/p>\n

Swift dedicated her win to \u201cthe ultimate showgirl\u201d Dolly Parton, who died last month aged 80 after being diagnosed with cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cListening to her songs, it\u2019s like watching the best music video you have ever seen in your life, every single time you hear what she\u2019s written,\u201d Swift said. \u201cAnd she handled this thing with such grace and joy and love and gratitude for the fact that she got to do this, and everything that happened in her life or her career, she channelled back into love and gratitude and appreciation for her fans.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Taylor Swift\u2019s Showgirl encore: Three superb new songs and a Colin Farrell cameoOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky I got to be one of them, and I\u2019ll always be one of them. I think we were all very lucky to share this planet with Dolly Parton for a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

After reflecting on her 20 years of making nearly 60 music videos, 18 of which she wrote and directed, Swift premiered her new video for Patient Zero, the lead single from The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore<\/a>, her four-track addition to last year\u2019s critically maligned album. The new video sees her twinning with actor Dakota Johnson in a showdown with a mutual ex played by Colin Farrell.<\/p>\n

Country singer Kacey Musgraves paid tribute to Parton by harmonising with archival video of the late singer performing her hit I Will Always Love You, to a visibly moved crowd. Later on, Sombr, Raye, Teddy Swims and Adam Lambert performed hits from George Michael\u2019s Faith tour, 10 years after the English singer\u2019s death aged 53.<\/p>\n

Madonna and Swift\u2019s dominance \u2013 the duo won four of the six awards handed out during the 2\u00bd-hour telecast, which was delayed by more than 20 minutes by an NFL game \u2013 injected some much-needed star power in a show that has struggled to find its identity in the streaming era.<\/p>\n

Presided over by a largely absent, if reliably chill first-time host, Snoop Dogg, the 2026 VMA telecast was once again dominated by female artists. K-pop star Lisa won best pop for her song Dream, while British newcomer Sienna Spiro was named best new artist after fans voted throughout the show.<\/p>\n

The Michael Jackson video vanguard award, a honorary lifetime achievement prize, went to Nirvana, for the influence of the era-defining grunge band\u2019s music videos. The visual concepts for Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, In Bloom, Heart-shaped Box and All Apologies \u201ccame out of the vision of one of the greatest artists of all time, Kurt Cobain,\u201d said Krist Novoselic, the band\u2019s bassist, speaking on behalf of drummer Dave Grohl and guitarist Pat Smear, who joined the band on tour beginning in 1993.<\/p>\n

Cobain, who died by suicide in 1994, was \u201cone of one\u201d he added, noting that the band\u2019s music still resonates because \u201cpeople are still hungry for authenticity, for something real, something uncompromising \u2026 Kurt would have loved that legacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

In categories not included in the telecast, K-pop group BTS won best group, best K-pop and song of the year for their hit Swim; Bruno Mars won best R&B for I Just Might; Cardi B and Kehlani won best hip-hop for Safe, Bad Bunny won best Latin for NUEVAYoL, Olivia Rodrigo won best alternative for The Cure, and Ella Langley won best country for her record-breaking hit Choosin\u2019 Texas. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Madonna and Taylor Swift triumphed at the 2026 MTV Video Music awards, with the former winning three trophies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8420,45133,93,61,60,40224,664,680,1834,23657,6543],"class_list":["post-638717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ariana-grande","tag-dolly-parton","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kurt-cobain","tag-madonna","tag-nirvana","tag-sabrina-carpenter","tag-snoop-dogg","tag-taylor-swift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}