MTV VMAs 2015: Highlights, winners and memorable moments
Taylor Swift was on top of the music world Sunday night -- with her girl squad right beside her -- taking home multiple Moonmen at the MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year for "Bad Blood."
"I'm just happy that in 2015, we live in a world where boys can play princesses and girls can play soldiers," she said while accepting the big honor. Swift beat out Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Mark Ronson and Lamar for the prize.
Video of the Year wasn't the only award Swift walked away with on Sunday. Earlier in the night she took the stage to accept Best Female Video for "Blank Space."
"I wanna thank the fans for watching the video a billion times," she said while holding her Moonman. Earlier, Swift also scored Best Pop Video honor for "Blank Space."
And if fans didn't get enough T-Swift, the songstress was on hand to present Kanye West with the prestigious Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, which previously went to David Bowie, Michael Jackson and Madonna.
This came as a bit of a surprise because as many recall West was the one who interrupted Swift in 2009 while accepting Best Female Video -- to proclaim that award should have gone to Beyonce's "Single Ladies."
But looks like there's no bad blood here; Swift had nothing but great things to say about West during her introduction.
"I first met Kanye West six years ago -- at this show actually!" Swift said, later adding, "I have been a fan of his since I remember ... I'm really happy for you and I'm going to let you finish," before calling him one of the greatest artists of all time and her "friend."
West received a standing ovation before giving a long, rambling speech in which he spoke about his daughter, North West, being high and winners and losers at the Grammys (he thinks Justin Timberlake should have won album of the year in 2007). The rapper ended by saying, "I have decided in 2020 to run for president." Wait, what?!
The night kicked off with a star-studded VMAs pre-show that featured Walk the Moon performing the hit "Shut Up and Dance" and Nick Jonas singing his new single "Levels."
A few awards were announced ahead of the show, too. Fall Out Boy received best rock video for "Uma Thurman," beating out Walk the Moon, Arctic Monkeys, Florence + the Machine and Hozier.
And Swift premiered her new video for "Wildest Dreams," which co-stars Scott Eastwood. "I hope people like it," she said on the red carpet.
The evening's host Miley Cyrus was jazzed up prior to the show, saying on the red carpet: "It's been kind of the most magical week of my life ... It feels like Christmas."
The night got off to an explosive start with a performance by Nicki Minaj and a surprise guest appearance by Swift.
"If you're happy to be alive, make some noise right now!" Minaj said as she kicked off the VMAs, the first of many musical performances.
Minaj played a montage of her hits, including "The Night is Still Young," where she was joined by Swift. They even performed part of Swift's "Bad Blood" -- showing the crowd there is no real "bad blood" between them after trading words over Twitter following the VMAs nominations announcement earlier this summer. The music performances continued with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performing "Downtown" outside in downtown L.A. It's the same stage where Demi Lovato sang her hit "Cool for the Summer" during the show.
Cyrus then emerged to begin the night, poking a little fun at herself during her opening monologue.
"This is a show that hasn't had a host for the last two years, a tradition they will probably return to immediately following tonight's show. I have literally done everything on the VMAs stage and none of it showed I was qualified to host," she said before saying maybe it was MTV's plan all along to get her away from performing, referring to her risqué 2013 performance with Robin Thicke.
The first Moonman of the awards show -- Best Male Video -- went to Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars for their hit "Uptown Funk." "Uptown Funk forever! Thank you!" Mars said onstage.
When Minaj scored best Hip-Hop Video for "Anaconda," she thanked her "beautiful fans" and her pastor. But then she threw some major shade at Cyrus, calling out the VMAs emcee for saying in a recent interview that the rapper was being a poor sport about not receiving a nomination for Video of the Year.
Fetty Wap won the Artist to Watch honor, while the Best Video with a Social Message went to Big Sean ft. Kanye West and John Legend, "One Man Can Change the World."
Presenters included Britney Spears, Rebel Wilson, Ice Cube, John Legend, Kylie Jenner, O'Shea Jackson, Jr., Rita Ora, Ne-Yo, Miguel, Emily Ratajkowski, Jussie Smollet and Serayah.
Throughout the night, music continued to fill out the awards show, with Justin Bieber's first VMAs performance in five years. After singing "Where Are U Now" and "What Do You Mean," he crouched down on the stage and cried (or at least appeared to be doing so).
The Weeknd got the crowd going (and some onstage fire, too) with the summer hit "Can't Feel My Face." And Tori Kelly showed off her vocal chops with a live rendition of "Should've Been Us."
Cyrus kept the two-hour-plus awards show interesting with countless wardrobe changes (all of them pretty out there!) and lots of references to her social media. She took part in a taped sketch co-starring Andy Samberg and Ike Barinholtz of "The Mindy Project." Together, they tried to come with some of the best and craziest Instagram posts for Cyrus. She also took a selfie with people in the audience and asked them to yell: "Marijuana."
She continued to push the envelope throughout the night, even at one point exposing her breast for a split second during the broadcast, making it seem like it was an accident. Was it? Either way, MTV said it would be removing that portion in future broadcast.
The "Wrecking Ball" singer ended the evening with a performance of her new song "Dooo It!" -- which started with the lyric "Yeah, I smoke pot," and an announcement that her new album, "Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz," is available for free now.
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