Madonna Is Opening The VMAs For The First Time In 23 Years And She Has 11 Nominations

CBS and MTV announced that Madonna will open the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards on September 27 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, hosted by Snoop Dogg, marking her first live performance at the ceremony in 23 years. She last took the VMA stage in 2003, when she opened the show alongside Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in a performance that became one of the most referenced moments in the awards show's history. The announcement arrives at the peak of a creative comeback that has made her the most nominated artist at this year's show: she enters with 11 nominations, including Artist of the Year, Video of the Year for Confessions II: The Film, and Song of the Year for Bring Your Love, her collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter. Taylor Swift is second with nine nominations, followed by Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter at seven. It is the third time Madonna has led VMA nominations, matching her nine-nomination hauls in 1990 for Vogue and in 1998 for Ray of Light and Frozen. Confessions II, her most recent studio album released in July 2026 through Warner Records, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and marked her return to the label for the first time since Hard Candy in 2008.

Her relationship with the VMAs spans the entire history of the ceremony. At the very first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, she performed Like a Virgin on a giant wedding cake in a wedding dress and a belt buckle reading Boy Toy, a performance that defined the show as something where anything could happen. Two years later she returned to accept the Video Vanguard Award, becoming the first solo female artist to receive the honor. In 1989 she opened the ceremony with Express Yourself. In 1990 she delivered her elaborate Vogue performance, inspired by 18th-century French fashion and Marie Antoinette, in one of the most stylistically precise stage productions in the show's history. In 1993 she played with gender and old Hollywood imagery for Bye Bye Baby. In total she has collected 20 competitive VMA wins from more than 80 career nominations. She is 68 years old. She was performing at the VMAs four years before the youngest nominees at this year's ceremony were born, and she is opening the show. The woman who built this stage is coming back to it. What she does there has not been announced. The only useful historical reference is that she has never done what anyone expected.

Source:https://www.hola.com/us/celebrities/20260917923880/madonna-returning-vmas-stage-42-years-debut/