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The 2023 MTV Video Music Awards caused mass confusion amongst fans after appearing to omit two of the night’s biggest honors.
Despite a whirlwind night of performances and honorifics, viewers were quick to notice that the televised broadcast ended without any mention of the Artist of the Year award and its nominees, which included Beyoncé, Doja Cat, Karol G, Taylor Swift, and Nicki Minaj.
Once that happened, it became clear that several of the fan-voted categories never made it to the VMAs stage, including Show of the Summer, Group of the Year, Song of the Summer, and, most notably, Album of the Year.
Unsurprisingly, Twitter was flooded with people asking “who won Artist of the Year” after the VMAs’ seemingly unceremonious ending. And then it was only a matter of time until Swifties started to wonder what happened to Album of the Year, seeing as how Midnights was up against Beyoncé’s Renaissance, Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss, SZA’s SOS, Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation, and Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains.
What made it stranger was that the official VMAs voting page listed all of the missing awards, though, unlike the other categories, none displayed a designated winner immediately after the show. And even weirder, both awards were presented at last year’s ceremony, where Harry Styles’ Harry’s House was voted Album of the Year, and Bad Bunny took home the title of Artist of the Year.
Regardless of what happened, the VMAs’ official Twitter did eventually tweet out a complete list of winners that confirmed Swift received both of the “missing” awards. So at the end of the day, the mystery got solved. Swift made VMA history in the pricess, tying for most wins in one night and now second-most overall wins.
Check out the entire list of winners here.
