Beyonce has taken top honours at MTV’s Video Music Awards in NY – while rapper Drake got tongues wagging by professing his “love” for Rihanna.
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Beyonce brought the house down at New York’s Madison Square Garden, stringing together five of her “Lemonade” album tracks about betrayal, revenge and female empowerment in a song and dance routine that brought a long standing ovation.
The odd, sexy video was the talk of Twitter with plenty of women and men gaping over her incredible figure, which is all the more incredible because she gave birth to her daughter less than a year ago.
It was reminiscent of the 2014 VMAs, when Beyonce also performed for 16 minutes and accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award.
West has had even more history with the awards show: He famously jumped onstage and stole Taylor Swift’s microphone at the 2009 show and a year ago gave an 11-minute speech onstage – after being introduced by Swift – and announced he was going to run for president in 2020.
West, who famously jumped on stage to interrupt Taylor Swift at the VMAs in 2009, didn’t perform, but instead took the time to explain his controversial music video “Famous”.
“Later tonight “Famous” might lose to Beyonce but I can’t be mad because I’m always wishing for Beyonce to win, so”. Adele, though, won’t attend the show at Madison Square Garden, her representative said. “That’s why I called her”.
Beyonce won best female video for “Hold Up”, presented to her by four of the Final Five gymnasts, excluding Gabby Douglas, who is hospitalized for a mouth infection.
“So many people feel like their little piece is such a major part of this puzzle and I have to thank you guys for supporting me, over and over”.
In another ode to the Olympic Games just past, Michael Phelps said he’s been inspired by hip-hop music before introducing Future, who Phelps said he listened to before swimming and making the grimace that went viral. “The rapper-singer-producer performed his hit “(Expletive) Up Some Commas”. The best male video nominees are West, Drake, the Weeknd, Bryson Tiller and Calvin Harris, whose nomination is for “This is What You Came For”, which he co-wrote with former girlfriend Swift.
Coldplay, Desiigner, Fergie and Alessia Cara earned multiple nominations, while David Bowie – who died from cancer earlier this year – is nominated for best direction, cinematography, art direction and editing for “Lazarus”.
Fifth Harmony and Ty Dollar $ign won best collaboration video for “Work from Home”. The girl group also won song of the summer for “All In My Head (Flex)”.
The Single Ladies singer arrived at the event with her four-year-old daughter Blue Ivy and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, including Sybrina Fulton, the mother of murdered teenager Trayvon Martin.
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Jimmy Fallon, who presented video of the year, dressed as Ryan Lochte and even sported the platinum blonde hair.
