\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tMadonna performing at The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStewart Cook\/CBS<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tSomething else that happened: There were a lot of fake red-carpet photos popping up. People who weren\u2019t there made to look like they were.<\/strong> \n\tThere were rumors that Miley Cyrus<\/a> and Rosal\u00eda were in talks to appear. Any truth to either? \n\tI had worked with Dolly and her team on the last TV show she did a couple of years ago, and they sent us a whole bunch of footage. I wanted to really show Dolly\u2019s personality. She was funny and salty as well as such a great musical soul and so generous. We found this old clip \u2014 she was probably about Kacey\u2019s age when she hosted a variety show, and she tells a joke and goes into \u201cI Will Always Love You.\u201d Then we transitioned right into Kacey doing it. It felt like the right way to honor such a great musical soul. I might add, it was Kacey\u2019s idea to end with a clip \u2014 to interrupt it. That is the beauty of working with musicians, they are brilliant and know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tSpeaking of performances, no Nirvana<\/a> tribute? They\u2019ve played plenty of times with guest singers in recent years. <\/strong> \n\tIt just felt right to honor their work in video and the impact of their music, and to have someone like Chuck D, whom they love and who loves them, give them the tribute \u2014 as opposed to trying to assemble somebody who sounded like Nirvana.<\/p>\n \n\tDid you reach out to Frances Bean and Courtney Love?<\/strong> \n\tCan you talk a bit about how Madonna\u2019s opening number came about? Seth Rogen\u2019s appearance was unexpected\u2026<\/strong> \n\tAll those cameos were her calling people directly: Sombr, Debi Mazar, Seth Rogen, Andrew Watt, Fab 5 Freddy, and a bunch of people from her past. Those were all her selections. I didn\u2019t know about Seth Rogen until maybe two days before. And, of course, you\u2019re not supposed to smoke on TV, but everyone decided to smoke on TV last night.<\/p>\n \n\tThat was real weed, I assume? Because Seth would never smoke anything other\u2026<\/strong> \n\tI read in one of your interviews that you said the Taylor award came from an \u201cexternal\u201d suggestion. What does that mean? <\/strong> \n\tWhen I was running MTV Networks, CMT was part of my portfolio, and she was first honored there for \u201cTim McGraw.\u201d Then she came and did the show at Radio City, which was a memorable night. She\u2019s just evolved so much, and we felt this would be a great way to honor her work. So we decided to do that as a group internally in the production team and reached out to her and her team. We\u2019re happy it worked out.<\/p>\n \n\tClearly it meant a lot to Taylor to be recognized for her directing work<\/a>.<\/strong> \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tTaylor Swift accepts the Artist Director Honors onstage during the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Winter\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tWhich is totally deserved. \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia\u201d is an epic visual spectacle. <\/strong> \n\tThe George Michael tribute was a highlight. Sombr wore George Michael\u2019s jacket, we learned after the fact?<\/strong> \n\tStreaming has eradicated generations. If you like metal, you may like Sabbath, Guns N\u2019 Roses and M\u00e5neskin, but they\u2019re all decades apart. They all get merged together. That was part of the upside of the show: You had Nirvana, a George Michael tribute, and a Dolly tribute, and then Lisa, Raye, and Sienna [Spiro] for the first time. They all know each other\u2019s music.<\/p>\n \n\tYou think about all the Nirvana fans \u2014 from Olivia Rodrigo to Selena Gomez to Dr. Dre and Chuck D. It\u2019s not split generationally the way it used to be. That was a fortuitous part of the show: We could book old and young.<\/p>\n \n\tWere you around when \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d came out? Do you remember the controversy over airing it? <\/strong> \n\tI remember we did the 10th anniversary of MTV for ABC. We had all these celebrities \u2014 Tom Cruise, R.E.M. \u2014 but we had George Michael doing \u201cFreedom\u201d in the round with the choir. It\u2019s killer. We tried to replicate some of that last night. Current music consumption patterns have allowed music shows to have that kind of mix of genres and artists.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t even know that. \u2026 It\u2019s so hard to prevent. We did invite social media people and creators into the venue this year. And what\u2019s also interesting, and new and novel, is that all of the performers bring their own social media people, who film all the stuff they do. So it\u2019s hard to keep things under wraps and keep any secrets any longer. That probably was a part of it.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>We probably reached out to them. There were so many artists we talked to about potential moments. Rosal\u00eda is such a great performer, but I think she was in South America. Miley also had a conflict. I would\u2019ve loved to have had Miley perform, or even talk about her godmother, [Dolly Parton]. But getting Kacey Musgraves, whom I know Dolly loved and who loved Dolly, to come in and do \u201cI Will Always Love You<\/a>\u201d was a pretty brave moment of hers.<\/p>\n\n
Here\u2019s the thing: It\u2019s like if you go see Paul and Ringo perform. It\u2019s not the Beatles; it\u2019s Paul and Ringo. Nirvana\u2019s not Nirvana without Kurt.<\/p>\n
Of course. We wouldn\u2019t have done the tribute without their participation. They approved everything: the tape and the person who presented it to them. They were a part of everything. They just weren\u2019t there live.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s such a unique individual who always pushed MTV, me, and every production team. It was a wonderfully collaborative performance. Given that [Confessions II<\/em>] is a dance record inspired by her time in New York and Danceteria, we brought her a bunch of ideas. One was transforming the MTV logo into her logo, and another was the bathroom stalls. She took some of our ideas and then really brought her own.<\/p>\n
I was in the truck, far away from the stage, so I can\u2019t say I smelled it from there. I can neither confirm nor deny. Snoop, on the other hand \u2014 no, I\u2019m kidding.<\/p>\n
Basically, a bunch of us \u2014 MTV employees, the producers, the production team \u2014 were looking at Taylor\u2019s body of work and her evolution. She\u2019s an artist who has thrived in front of the camera and behind the camera, in all genres of music.<\/p>\n
Oh, yeah. She picked Dakota [Johnson], and she takes that work so seriously in all aspects of those videos. They are short films, no doubt. She makes exceptional videos, so we felt this would be the right time to honor her for that. It turns out she also won Video of the Year<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>
She keeps pushing it and making great stuff. It\u2019s not just the music; it\u2019s the visual aspect as well that she marries to it. She is a true visionary.<\/p>\n
We tried to replicate as much as we could. We had a jukebox there, and it was such a great marriage of mostly current artists \u2014 from Raye and Sombr and Teddy Swims to Adam Lambert \u2014 and all the singers at the end. Those are such great songs, and maybe one of the best aspects of the show was how it traversed generations and music. Music has changed so much since I was doing the VMAs early on. I don\u2019t think we ever had anyone above the age of 35 on the show.<\/p>\n
Yeah, we had to put warnings in front of some videos. Madonna sometimes would come in purposely knowing we were going to ban her video. Like \u201cJustify My Love\u201d \u2014 it was like a soft-core porn video, and we were like, \u201cOh, we can\u2019t run that.\u201d She had the release planned as soon as she was leaving the office. We had a daypart for certain videos. George definitely had videos that were quite sexual and started the supermodel era, but he was such a seminal part of MTV\u2019s history.<\/p>\n