In Musgraves’ first performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in five years, she honored the late legend <\/p>\n
\n\tThe MTV VMAs<\/a> tribute to Dolly Parton<\/a> on Sunday began with a heart-tugging video clip of Parton herself singing \u201cI Will Always Love You,\u201d with Kacey Musgraves<\/a> harmonizing on the last lines. Then Musgraves, in her first appearance at the VMAs in five years, took over for a lovely solo piano-and-voice performance of Parton\u2019s song. <\/p>\n Musgraves, who was wearing a glittery, Parton-worthy gown, pre-taped the performance \u2014\u00a0she was performing in Nashville at the Bridgestone Arena for her Middle of Nowhere tour the night of the VMAs. <\/p>\n \n\tCountry acts are relatively rare at the VMAs, which only added a country category<\/a> in 2025. Musgraves is up for the category this year for \u201cDry Spell.\u201d Megan Moroney performed \u201cSix Months Later\u201d at last year\u2019s awards, also taking home the Moon Person trophy, and Musgraves lit the stage on fire with a dramatic take on \u201cStar-Crossed\u201d in 2021. Parton herself never appeared at the VMAs, but she did lead an illustrious music-video career with classics like \u201c9 to 5,\u201d which featured clips of her movie co-stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n \n\tParton, who died Aug. 25, was a major source of inspiration for Musgraves; she called the country legend \u201ca supernova of a person.\u201d Musgraves has been paying tribute to her often on tour, covering \u201c9 to 5<\/a>\u201d in New York and \u201cHere You Come Again<\/a>\u201d in Boston and speaking to the audience about her impact.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe world definitely lost a light, and it\u2019s hard for me to talk about,\u201d she told the crowd at Madison Square Garden. \u201cAnd I know how much Dolly meant to everybody also in this room. I think why it feels so dark is it\u2019s already hard to navigate these times right now, and then we lose a matriarch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Musgraves’ first performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in five years, she honored the late legend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[42007,156,217075,10780,157,111,139,69,10781,282392],"class_list":["post-614138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-dolly-parton","tag-entertainment","tag-kacey-musgraves","tag-mtv-video-music-awards","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-vmas","tag-vmas-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}