Madonna Dominates as the 2026 VMAs Throw a Nineties Party

Madonna returned to the MTV Video Music Awards stage for the first time in 23 years, opened the show, and left as the night's biggest winner at a ceremony overtaken by the Nineties, now airing on CBS and Paramount+.

Snoop Dogg hosted, promising: "Tonight is going to be the biggest party the VMAs has ever seen." He wore VMAs merch all night and kept the mood, in one observer's phrase, "laaaaaaid back." The Nineties theme ran through everything: a Video Vanguard tribute to Nirvana, a running gag about the Spice Girls, and a crowd-wide singalong to "Freedom '90."

Madonna had not performed on the VMAs since 2003, when she kissed Britney Spears during a "Like a Virgin" reprise. This year she began the broadcast at the piano with Sabrina Carpenter before Charli XCX arrived for "Danceteria," staged as the early-eighties New York disco. Debi Mazar, Fab Five Freddie, Julia Garner in the "Open Your Heart" corset, Tony Ward, Andrew Watt and even Seth Rogen populated the set. "Everybody here is a work of art," Madonna sang. Critics called it one of the great performances in the history of the VMAs.

Madonna also won Artist of the Year and gave what viewers described as gloriously chaotic speeches. "I'm kind of unclear what this award is for?" she asked when collecting Best Dance. Then came a genuinely moving reflection: "I came to New York to be a dancer. Dance is where everything happened for me in my life. I came to life on the dance floor. I found my community on the dance floor. I fell in love with people on the dance floor."

The Nirvana tribute proved the night's strangest moment. Chuck D — who gave the same award to the Beastie Boys in 1998 — declared: "I have the distinct honor of recognizing a band that changed the course of music, Nirvana." The band played nothing. Krist Novoselic delivered a speech about Kurt Cobain's genius; a montage showed Cobain naming the Anton Corbijn clip for "Heart-Shaped Box" as his favorite. Pat Smear smoked a cigarette onstage — "the most authentically Nirvana moment," as one review put it. Charli XCX's sarcastic half-clap during Novoselic's speech became an instant talking point, alongside Tyla's grudging slow-motion clap when Taylor Swift's name was announced.

Swift won a new honor, the Artist Director Award, for her work behind the camera, quipping in a clip: "I have been the architect of my own chaos that I currently live in." She premiered the video for "Patient Zero," a Hollywood-style thriller starring Dakota Johnson, Colin Farrell and Cara Delevingne as, in Swift's words, "the lusty other woman." Swift described it on social media: "I wanted to incorporate elements of gothic ghost stories, true crime, psychological thrillers all in a setting I hadn't really shot in much. The house was a metaphor for the coldness of a relationship that's faded and atrophied."

Swift then took Video of the Year for "The Fate of Ophelia," her longest-running Number One at ten weeks. It was her 33rd Moonman, making her the biggest winner in VMA history. She dedicated the award to Dolly Parton: "Man, she handled this thing with such grace and joy and love and gratitude for the fact that she got to do this. I think we were all very lucky to share this planet with Dolly Parton for a time."

Kacey Musgraves honored Parton earlier in the night, singing "I Will Always Love You" with only a pianist beneath a butterfly icon. "Now that's how you honor a legend," Snoop said.

Other highlights included Raye performing barefoot on "I Will Overcome" and "Where Is My Husband!"; Bruno Mars delivering the cowboy-suited slow dance "Dance With Me"; Sierra Spiro winning Best New Artist; Lisa staging a martial-arts action film for "Sawadika" and winning Best Pop Video, sobbing, "All those late-night dreams brought me here today"; and Yung Lean and Gener8tion closing with "Storm II," choreographed by Damien Jalet.

A George Michael tribute, promoting his upcoming concert film, flagged until Adam Lambert rescued it with a confident "Freedom '90" in a black-leather cape — while Paris Hilton sang along from the crowd.

The Nineties glow carried an edge. Paramount Skydance erased MTV's online archives last year; the day before the broadcast, MTV ran nothing but Ridiculousness reruns, followed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. For a few hours, though, the VMAs let MTV cosplay as MTV — and with the show's future on a new network uncertain, this edition may be remembered as one that went out in style.