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The 2023 MTV Video Music Awards will be held at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on Tuesday, Sept. 12. It will mark the second year in a row – and the third time in the past five years – that the show has been held at that venue.
This will be the 40th year for the VMAs, which originated as an irreverent, younger-skewing alternative to the Grammy Awards. The VMAs are now as old as the Grammys were in 1998, the year that a performance artist who went by the name Soy Bomb crashed Bob Dylan’s show-capping performance of “Love Sick.”
This will be the first time the show has been held at any one venue two years in a row since 2010-11, when it came from the Nokia Theatre (now Microsoft Theater) in Los Angeles.
This will be the sixth consecutive year that the VMAs has been based on the East Coast. That’s the longest that the traditionally bicoastal show has come from either coast since it was based in Los Angeles seven years in a row from 1987 to 1993. (The 1986 show aired from both coasts – The Palladium in New York and the Universal Amphitheatre in L.A.)
“We’re thrilled to be returning to the Prudential Center in Newark for this year’s VMAs!” Bruce Gillmer, president of music, music talent, programming & events, Paramount and chief content officer, music, Paramount+, said in a statement. “Celebrating one of our biggest nights in music with the Garden State’s incredible fans has been our goal since last year’s highly successful event.”
“The return of the VMAs to the Prudential Center testifies to New Jersey’s enduring standing as a premier venue for large-scale entertainment events,” added the state’s governor, Phil Murphy. “As the home of some of the most internationally renowned names in the music industry, New Jersey is proud to once again partner with Paramount to showcase an array of exciting performances to a global audience.”
Taylor Swift made history at last year’s VMAs, becoming the first artist to win video of the year three times. She won for “All Too Well: The Short Film,” having previously won for “Bad Blood” (with Kendrick Lamar) and “You Need to Calm Down.”
Last year’s show was co-hosted by Jack Harlow, LL Cool J and Nicki Minaj. Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco hosted the show in 2019, its first year at Prudential Center. The show hasn’t had a repeat host since Russell Brand fronted the show in 2008-09.
The VMAs will air across MTV’s global footprint of linear and digital platforms in more than 150 countries and territories, with a potential reach of more than 319 million households, according to MTV’s numbers-crunchers.
Apparently, Pink was originally supposed to be part of Madonna‘s iconic VMAs performance with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Who knew?
In a Wednesday (Feb. 22) radio appearance on KTU 103.5, the “Just Give Me a Reason” singer revealed that the Queen of Pop had actually asked her — and Gwen Stefani, she thinks — to be part of the infamous 2003 spectacle, during which Madonna individually kissed Aguilera and the “Toxic” singer as Justin Timberlake, who had recently split from Spears, looked on from the audience.
“I think we all were [invited],” Pink recalled. “I think Madonna wanted to kiss all of us. I was in Costa Rica at the time, having all kinds of fun with my boyfriend Carey Hart. Gwen Stefani was also invited, I remember. It was a bunch of us.”
“It was going to be a party,” added the pop star, who’s been married to Hart since 2006, grinning slyly. “It would’ve been a really weird party.”
The revelation comes about a month after Jennifer Lopez said that she, too, had originally been approached for Madge’s steamy performance. The Shotgun Wedding actress had actually gotten as far as meeting with Spears and Madonna at the legendary artist’s home to discuss possibilities, but ultimately, Lopez was unable to get away from the movie she was filming at the time.
“I didn’t wind up doing it, but yeah, we had talked about it,” Lopez said in a January interview. “I love Madonna. I’m a huge fan, I always have been.”
Watch Pink talk about the Madonna kiss that never came to be below:
Taylor Swift once wrote the lyrics, “This me swallowing my pride, standing in front of you, saying I’m sorry for that night,” allegedly about Taylor Lautner, and now, the Twilight actor is returning the favor. In a recent podcast appearance, Lautner opened up about regretting how he handled that fateful night in September 2009 when, seconds after he presented a VMA award to the pop star, Kanye West rushed the stage and took the microphone.
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The recollection comes during a Wednesday (Feb. 1) episode of The Squeeze, a podcast hosted by Lautner’s wife, health influencer Taylor Lautner (that’s not a typo, they share the same first and last name!). When Mrs. Lautner asked Mr. Lautner which moment in his life to which he’d like to travel back in time and change, he said, “Probably the 2009 VMAs when I presented the award to Taylor and was unaware that the Kanye thing was not a skit.”
You might recall that this was also around the time Swift and the Home Team star dated, as confirmed during the podcast by Lautner’s wife. “You and Taylor [Swift] had just gone public,” the podcast host prompted.
“I presented the award to her,” the actor continued. “I took five steps back and was standing five feet behind her. Kanye jumps up on to the stage. I could barely hear it, I can’t see them, I’m just assuming this whole thing was a practiced and rehearsed skit. Because why else would Kanye West be jumping up on the stage interrupting Taylor Swift? It just didn’t make sense.”
The Tracers star went on to say he regrets his onstage reaction to the moment, even though he couldn’t hear what was happening at the time. “If you look back at it, I’m actually caught laughing and giggling at them,” he recalled. “The second she turned back around and I saw her face for the first time, I was like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t good.’”
It was a pop-culture moment that immediately went down in history: Swift winning best video, female artist for “You Belong With Me,” Kanye West grabbing the microphone and shouting the now infamous line, “I’mma let you finish, but …,” and Beyoncé’s horrified expression as he declared her the rightful winner of the award. It was the very beginning of a decade-long, on-off feud between the “All Too Well” singer and Ye, who, 13 years later, has been in and out of the news for making infinitely more shocking statements about antisemitism.
After that chaotic VMAs ceremony, Swift went on to release her 2010 third studio album, Speak Now, with songs seemingly dedicated to both Ye (“Innocent”) and Lautner (“Back to December”). In the latter track, she even appeared to reference the award-show incident, singing about how a love “held me in your arms that September night/ The first time you ever saw me cry.”
Watch Taylor Lautner reflect on the infamous Kanye West/Taylor Swift VMAs moment below:
Remember when the Queen of Pop kissed the Princess of Pop at the VMAs? Turns out, Madonna and Britney Spears‘ iconic awards show performance moment was actually supposed to include someone else who’s pop music royalty: Jennifer Lopez.
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In a new interview with E! News ahead of the Jan. 27 streaming release of Shotgun Wedding, her upcoming Prime Video film with Josh Duhamel, J Lo confirmed rumors that she’d originally been tapped for Madonna’s headline-making musical performance at the 2003 Video Music Awards. She also explained why she ended up not doing the show, which resulted in Christina Aguilera stepping in to fill her shoes.
“Yes, that is actually true,” Lopez said. “I was filming a movie in Canada. We had met — me, her and Britney — to do it, at [Madonna’s] home. I just couldn’t get off the film, so we couldn’t do it. Then they got Christina Aguilera, I think, to do it.”
The revelation came after E! asked Lopez what her favorite karaoke song is, at which point she started singing Madge’s 1984 smash “Like a Virgin.” What’s Duhamel’s go-to, you ask? “Neon Moon” by Brooks & Dunn.
“I didn’t wind up doing it, but yeah, we had talked about it,” she added. “I love Madonna, I’m a huge fan, I always have been.”
Billboard has reached out to the VMAs for comment.
For those in need of a refresher, The Kiss went down during a group performance of Madonna’s “Hollywood” at the VMAs. Right before the song transitioned into a guest appearance from Missy Elliott, Madonna exchanged a sultry kiss with Brit, then turned to her other side and did the same with Christina. Had Lopez been able to do the show, it would’ve been her getting smooched by the Material Girl instead.
Though Madonna kissed both ladies onstage with her, it was her moment with Spears that solidified itself as pop culture history — likely due in part to the exceptionally-timed camera cut to a stony-looking Justin Timberlake, who’d broken up with Spears the year prior. Flash forward to 2022, and the “Toxic” singer and Madonna recreated the lip-lock at Brit’s wedding to Sam Asghari.
See Jennifer Lopez talk about the VMAs performance that didn’t come to be below:
Måneskin is all for keeping the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll alive — which is why the Italian rockers took issue with the MTV Video Music Awards censoring their performance back in August.
When Maneskin’s Victoria De Angelis suffered a wardrobe malfunction that left her chest exposed during their performance of the Alternative Airplay No. 1 hit “Supermodel,” the live broadcast cut away from the bassist to wide shots of the stage instead. In a new NME interview with De Angelis and frontman Damiano David published earlier this week, the duo shared that the censorship was a major disappointment to them as a band.
“It shows that there are still many, many prejudices towards rock bands and towards women,” David told NME. “There is a lot to work on and we try to do our part.”
The televised moment saw cameras at the awards show hastily panning away from the stage following De Angelis’ exposure and to an area containing empty seats; shortly after the moment, De Angelis went down into a pit of fans at the show to continue the performance.
“It’s sad, but it’s good that people then talk about it and think about it,” De Angelis added. “It’s stupid that there has to be this control and censorship over people’s bodies.”
On Sept. 6 — a week after the 2022 VMAs took place — MTV shared a “restored,” slightly less censored version of Måneskin’s performance. De Angelis’ wardrobe malfunction remains, though her bare chest is blurred in the final cut.
Revisit Måneskin’s performance of “Supermodel” at the 2022 MTV VMAs below.