Picking the winner at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards will be a little more challenging this year, since Taylor Swift, who has won the award five times, including the last three years in a row, isn’t in the running this time out. (Her only eligible video was “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”) This means we’ll see someone other than Swift win video of the year for the first time since way back in 2021, when Lil Nas X took the prize for “Montero (Call Me by Your Name.”)
But who will it be? The nominees include three past winners in the category. Lady Gaga, who won in 2010 for “Bad Romance,” is nominated this year for “Die With a Smile,” her smash collab with Bruno Mars. Kendrick Lamar, who won in 2015 as featured artist on Swift’s “Bad Blood” and in 2017 for his own “HUMBLE.,” is nominated for “Not Like Us.” The Weeknd, who won in 2020 for “Blinding Lights,” is nominated for “Timeless,” his collab with Playboi Carti.
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Mars has two nominations in the category. In addition to the Gaga collab, he’s also nominated for “APT.,” his collab with ROSÉ (who is the first K-Pop star to receive a video of the year nod). Mars is just the fourth artist to land two video of the year nods in the same year, following David Lee Roth (1985), U2 (1988) and Gaga (2010). Mars, surprisingly, has yet to win in the VMAs’ highest-profile category, despite five previous nominations.
Ariana Grande’s “brighter days ahead” is nominated for both video of the year and best long form video. The latter award has been awarded only three times – to Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection (1991), Beyoncé’s Lemonade (2016) and Swift’s All Too Well: The Short Film (2022). Swift’s title also won video of the year, as did “Formation” from Lemonade. This is Grande’s fifth nomination in the category. She too has yet to win.
The other nominees in the category are Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild.” This is Eilish’s fourth nomination in the category; Eilish’s second. Again, neither star has won in this category.
“Not Like Us” may be the front-runner in the category: The smash won five Grammys on Feb. 2, including best music video.
But we want to know what you think. What do you think should win the VMA for video of the year? Vote!