The 2020 MTV Video Music Awards were held on August 30, 2020.

Keke Palmer Lauren Keyana "Keke" Palmer (born August 26, 1993) ( ) is an American actress, singer and television personality. Known for playing leading and character roles in comedy and drama productions, she has received a Primetime Emmy Award, five NAACP ...

hosted the 37th annual ceremony, which was presented primarily from the channel headquarter in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, but with a virtual segments held in another cities,due the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. This was the first VMA ceremony to be broadcast on

The CW ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...

was the most awarded act of the night with five awards, as well as the most nominated alongside

Ariana Grande Ariana Grande-Butera ( ; born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her four-octave vocal range has received critical acclaim, and her personal life has been the subject of widespread media attention. She has received ...

, with both artists receiving nine nominations each. Gaga was presented with the inaugural MTV Tricon Award for achievements in three or more fields of entertainment. The

longlist A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates (sometimes via intermediate lists known as "long lists"). The length of short lists varie ...

of nominees for

Push Best New Artist The MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist has been given out since the first annual MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. Until 2006, the award was named Best New Artist in a Video. In 2007 its name was changed to Best New Artist, as the category u ...

were revealed on July 23, 2020; nominees for other categories were announced on July 30. Fan voting began on July 30 and ended on August 23. Nominees for

Song of Summer ''Song of Summer'' is a 1968 black-and-white television film co-written, produced, and directed by Ken Russell for the BBC's '' Omnibus'' series which was first broadcast on 15 September 1968. It portrays the final six years of Frederick Delius ...

, Best Group and Everyday Heroes: Frontline Medical Workers were released on August 24. The show was dedicated to

Chadwick Boseman Chadwick Aaron Boseman (; November 29, 1976August 28, 2020) was an American actor. During his two-decade career, Boseman received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award, ...

, who died of colon cancer two days before the ceremony. The show received 6.4 million viewers in its first-run viewing (excluding livestreams through network apps), a 5% decrease from the 6.8 million viewers at the previous ceremony.

Ceremony information

The awards were originally scheduled to return to the

Barclays Center Barclays Center is a multi-purpose list of indoor arenas, indoor arena in the New York City Boroughs of New York City, borough of Brooklyn. The arena is home to the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association and the New York Liberty o ...

for the first time since

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

. Due to the

, the event was expected to be held with "limited or no audience", as one of the first major indoor events to be held in the city since the onset of the pandemic in the state, with MTV also announcing plans for the show to " pan all five boroughs" to "pay homage to the strength, spirit and incredible resilience of NYC and its beloved residents". MTV eventually scrapped the indoor component of the ceremony at Barclays after "close consultation with state and local health officials" and announced that it would be conducted in an outdoor format across the city; the arena in Brooklyn would subsequently host the 2021 event instead. The majority of performances were pre-recorded either in New York City (with locations such as Hudson Yards and a drive-in theatre in Brooklyn), or on a

chroma key Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...

set at the MTV studios headquarters with New York scenery for acts unable to travel to New York City (primarily in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, and

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

in the case of BTS). All personnel not from New York City were required to quarantine for three to four days on arrival, and be

tested ''Tested'' is a live album by punk rock band Bad Religion. It was recorded in the USA, Canada, Germany, Estonia, Denmark, Italy and Austria, in 1996, and released in 1997. It is Bad Religion's second live album. Instead of using crowd microphon ...

before and after filming. Red carpet appearances and some speeches were also recorded during the same sessions. New one-off award categories for "Quarantine Performance" and "Best Music Video from Home" were added on July 30 in light of the ongoing pandemic. Three additional categories were announced on August 24:

, Best Group and "Everyday Heroes: Frontline Medical Workers", with the latter created "to celebrate performances by COVID-19 first responders". In addition to the

ViacomCBS Paramount Global (doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. I ...

family of networks, the VMAs were also

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

terrestrial television Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an ant ...

(a joint venture of ViacomCBS and

WarnerMedia Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

). The CW also aired a post-show recap special, composed mostly of pre-show performance footage.

Performances

J Balvin José Álvaro Osorio Balvín (born 7 May 1985), known professionally as J Balvin, is a Colombian singer and songwriter. He has been referred to as the " Prince of Reggaeton" (from Spanish: "Príncipe del Reggaetón"), and is one of the best-sell ...

and

Roddy Ricch Rodrick Wayne Moore Jr. (born October 22, 1998), known professionally as Roddy Ricch, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He rose to fame in 2018 with his single, " Die Young", which peaked at number 98 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. ...

were initially announced as performers on August 4 and 11 respectively, but later pulled out of the event.

Presenters

Presenters were announced on August 27.

Pre-show

Nessa Nessa Diab, known mononymously as Nessa, is an American radio and TV personality and television host. Early life and education Nessa was born to an Egyptian father and mother. She has two brothers. She grew up in Southern California but her ...

and Jamila Mustafa – presented Best Group and Best K-Pop *

Travis Mills Travis Tatum Mills (born April 12, 1989), previously known by his stage name T. Mills, is an American rapper, singer, and actor from Riverside, California. Following his name change from T. Mills to Travis Mills, he began hosting an eponymous s ...

– presented Best Alternative

Main show

Jaden Smith Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born July 8, 1998), also known mononymously as Jaden, is an American rapper, singer, and actor. He has received various accolades, including a Teen Choice Award, an MTV Movie Award, a BET Award and a Young Artist ...

– presented Best Collaboration *

Drew Barrymore Drew Blythe Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, director, producer, talk show host and author. A member of the Barrymore family of actors, she is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a ...

– presented Best Direction *

Anthony Ramos Anthony Paul Ramos Martinez (born November 1, 1991) is an American actor and singer. In 2015, he originated the dual roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the Broadway musical '' Hamilton''. Ramos also appeared in the 2021 film version o ...

– presented Best Latin *

Joey King Joey Lynn King (born July 30, 1999) is an American actress. She first gained recognition for portraying Ramona Quimby in the comedy film ''Ramona and Beezus'' (2010) and has since gained wider recognition for her lead role in ''The Kissing Boot ...

– presented Song of the Year *

Madison Beer Madison Elle Beer (born March 5, 1999) is an American singer. Born in New York, she began posting covers to YouTube in early 2012. Beer gained substantial media coverage when Justin Bieber posted a link to one of her covers. She released her d ...

– presented Best Music Video from Home * Nicole Richie – presented Best Pop and Best R&B *

Kelly Clarkson Kelly Brianne Clarkson (born April 24, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter, author, and television personality. She rose to fame after winning the first season of ''American Idol'' in 2002, which earned her a record deal with RCA. Her debu ...

– presented Artist of the Year *

Sofia Carson Sofía Daccarett Char (born April 10, 1993), known professionally as Sofia Carson, is an American actress and singer. Her first appearance on television was as a guest star on the Disney Channel series '' Austin & Ally''. In 2015, she received ...

– presented Video for Good *

Bella Hadid Isabella Khairiah Hadid (born October 9, 1996) is an American model. In 2016, she was voted "Model of the Year" by industry professionals for Models.com. Over the span of four years, Hadid has made twenty-seven appearances on international '' ...

– presented the Tricon Award *

Travis Barker Travis Landon Barker (born November 14, 1975) is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the rock band Blink-182. He has also performed as a frequent collaborator with hip hop artists, is a member of the rap rock group Transpla ...

– presented Best Hip Hop and introduced the "In Memoriam" segment *

Machine Gun Kelly George Kelly Barnes (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954), better known by his pseudonym "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster from Memphis, Tennessee, active during the Prohibition era. His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thom ...

– presented Push Best New Artist *

Bebe Rexha Bleta Rexha (; born August 30, 1989), known professionally as Bebe Rexha ( ), is an American pop singer and songwriter. After signing with Warner Records in 2013, Rexha received songwriting credits on Eminem's single " The Monster" (which later ...

– presented Video of the Year

Winners and nominees

On July 23, 2020, seventeen

pre-nominees were announced. Fan voting for most categories took place from July 30 to August 23. Nominees for most other categories were revealed on July 30. Nominations for remaining categories were announced August 24. The Push Best New Artist category was narrowed down to three finalists on August 24 and voting moved to

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, where it continued until August 28. Voting for Best Group and

ran from August 24–26 and August 26–28 respectively, and took place via MTV's

Instagram stories Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

was the most-awarded nominee with five wins, followed by

and

BTS BTS (), also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a South Korean boy band formed in 2010 and debuting in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment. The septet—consisting of members Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook—co-writes and co-produ ...

with four each. Winners are listed first and highlighted in bold.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:2020 MTV Video Music Awards MTV Video Music

MTV Video Music Awards The MTV Video Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the VMAs) is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honour the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category) ...

MTV Video Music Awards ceremonies