Taylor Swift was once again the big winner at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, scooping nine prizes.
The 33-year-old singer-songwriter dominated the evening at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday night as she also took home gongs Song of the Year, for her hit Anti-Hero, as well as the Artist of the Year accolade.
She also scooped the Best Direction, Best Pop, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects awards for Anti-Hero.
As she accepted the Best Pop prize, she told the crowd: “I love making pop music, I love making pop music videos, I also love making country.
“I love slinking around different genres and the only reason I’m allowed to do that is because you, the fans, gave me the opportunity to do this.
“One big adventure and it’s all so much to challenge myself to make music that’s different than what I made last and I just love you for it. But I really love making pop music, so thank you so, so, so much.”
She made history for winning the Video of the Year prize a record fourth time after previously scooping the gong for All Too Well: The Short Film, Bad Blood, and You Need to Calm Down.
Tay-Tay, who also won Album of the Year for Midnights and the Show of the Summer accolade, praised her long-time songwriting partner Jack Antonoff after accepting the Song of the Year gong.
She said: “I’m so lucky I’ve been making music with him since we worked on an album called 1989 – we will continue working together until 2089!
“I started writing songs when I was 12 and it always starts with a very isolated emotion, a very specific type of insecurity or self-loathing that I feel like I’m the only one who is feeling in that moment . But then when I go out on tour and I’ve got stadiums singing the words back to me.”
Taylor was nominated for 11 awards in total, and only lost out in the Best Editing category, to Olivia Rodrigos Vampire, and Song of the Summer, which went to Jungkook and Latto’s tune Seven.
Other big winners on the night saw Nicki Minaj, who hosted the show, take home Best Hip-Hop song for Super Freaky Girl, and Ice Spice was named Best New Artist.
Stray Kids’ S-Class was awarded Best K-Pop, Anitta’s Funk Rave took the Best Latin award, and SZA landed Best R&B thanks to song Shirt.
Rema and Selena Gomez’s Calm Down won in the Best Afrobeats section.
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