NEW YORK (AP) — The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards are here and Swifties, it looks like the night is already yours.
Earlier this week it was announced that Taylor Swift will receive the inaugural Artist Director Honors, becoming the most awarded artist in VMA history.
Swift is currently tied with Beyoncé for the title of most-awarded musician in VMA history. They have 30 each. (Eminem is the male artist with the most VMAs with 15.) The new award, which according to the VMAs is meant to recognize artists “whose work behind the camera has expanded the possibilities of music video and advanced the art of visual storytelling,” will bring her total to 31.
She will also debut the music video for her new song, “Patient Zero,” during the award show. Swift directed the visual, which stars Colin Farrell and Dakota Johnson.
“Patient Zero” is also her first single since marrying Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden in July.
Here's what else to know ahead of Sunday night's show.
The two-hour MTV Video Music Awards show will broadcast live on CBS on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern and 4:30 p.m. Pacific, from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
It is the first time since 2017 that the VMAs have picked a location that is not in New York or New Jersey.
The VMAs are also simulcast on MTV and be available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S. It will become available to stream globally the next day on Paramount+ and MTV.
Snoop Dogg, a 13-time VMAs nominee and three-time winner, will host. Snoop made his debut on the VMAs stage in 1994. He closed the show in 1999 with Dr. Dre and Eminem and returned for a tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. and again for a performance with Eminem in 2022.
Madonna leads the 2026 MTV Video Music Award nominations. The pop superstar has been nominated in every decade of her musical career. She has 19 competitive MTV VMA wins and in 1986 became the first solo female artist to receive the Video Vanguard Award.
She is up for 11 awards at this year’s ceremony, including video, artist and song of the year, as well as best collaboration, dance, direction, art direction, cinematography, editing, choreography and visual effects.
Taylor Swift follows with the second-most nominations with nine. She is up for video and artist of the year as well as best pop, direction, art direction, cinematography, editing, choreography and visual effects.
Madonna and Swift are followed by Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter with seven nods each to their names, as well as Bruno Mars, PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson with five. Blackpink’s LISA has four and Shakira, Tate McRae, GENER8ION and Yung Lean are tied for three.
Madonna will open the show. It will mark her first performance at the VMAs in 23 years.
Kacey Musgraves will pay homage to the late, great Dolly Parton. The country music icon, whose soaring vibrato vocals, poignant songwriting and sparkling costumes defined her rise from a log cabin in the Tennessee mountains to the height of stardom and acclaim, died in Nashville of cancer in August. She was 80.
Raye, Sombr and Teddy Swims will pay tribute to George Michael, who died 10 years ago on Christmas Day. He was 53.
It's double duty for Raye, who also will perform solo.
Other performers include GENER8ION with Yung Lean, Shaboozey with Gunna, as well as Lisa and Sienna Spiro.
Alex Warren, Belmont Cameli, Charli xcx, Ciara Miller, David Corenswet, Ella Bright, Isabel May, Jeff Probst, Rachel Dratch, Teyana Taylor, Tyla and Troye Sivan will present.
For more coverage of this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/mtv-video-music-awards
Madonna appears at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala in New York on May 5, 2025, left, and Taylor Swift appears at the MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, N.Y., on Sept. 11, 2024. (Photos by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - A statue of the MTV Moon Man appears on the red carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 20, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been in the job for two months, and so far his party isn’t demanding his head. These days, that’s an accomplishment.
The governing Labour Party opens its annual conference beside the River Mersey in Liverpool on Sunday, with Burnham pledging to turn the page on a decade of economic and political turmoil that has made him the U.K.’s seventh prime minister since its 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
He says his message in a keynote speech on Tuesday will be: “It’s time for Britain to have hope again.”
“We’ve had a decade since Brexit and it’s been a decade of too much drift, too much division, and we need to draw a line on that,” Burnham said as he arrived in Liverpool on Saturday.
His message is aimed at both the British public and a center-left party that is hopeful but nervous — ready to embrace his promise of better times, but worried about economic damage rippling out from conflict in the Middle East.
University of Manchester political science professor Rob Ford said Burnham’s difficult task is to win over “a skeptical electorate" eager for change, "while at the same time doing that within the constraints of a very difficult economic and fiscal situation.”
In short: “How do you serve people a bowl of cold porridge and convince them it’s a pepperoni pizza?”
Britain’s main political parties all hold conferences in September and October, combinations of pep rally, social gathering and policy forum that set the political tone and agenda for the year ahead.
Last year’s Labour gathering was gloomy, as members despaired about Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s deep unpopularity, little more than a year after winning power in a landslide, and the seemingly unstoppable rise of the anti-immigration opposition party Reform UK.
Burnham, then the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, was followed around Liverpool by journalists as speculation grew that he would challenge Starmer.
Events came to a head months later when a panicky party forced Starmer’s resignation and his replacement by Burnham as party leader and prime minister in July.
Now, Labour is seeing a “Burnham bounce” driven by the new leader’s upbeat talk and modest moves to put money in voters’ pocketbooks by cutting tax on electricity bills and capping bus fares.
Meanwhile, Reform is facing parliamentary and police investigations over its finances – though it also recently received a whopping 72 million pounds ($95 million) from two cryptocurrency billionaires.
Burnham has already set out some priorities, including handing more power to local leaders in order to generate "good growth in every post code.” He says he’ll reform Britain’s privatized utilities, especially the expensive, leaky and polluting water network.
While the party is relatively united behind Burnham, he faces a divisive decision about whether to approve new oil drilling in the North Sea – opposed by environmentalists but backed by trade unions – and pushback over plans agreed under Starmer to make it harder for immigrants to settle permanently in Britain.
The next general election does not have to be called until 2029, but Labour’s revival has sparked talk of a snap election – something Burnham denies he’s considering.
“All of this speculation on an early election, I can knock that dead,” Burnham told broadcaster ITV on Friday.
But no matter how upbeat Burnham is, economic pain is coming.
Burnham must explain to party members and voters how he will deal with economic turbulence from the on-off U.S.-Iran war, which has severely restricted the movement of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
Treasury chief John Healey is set to deliver the Burnham government’s first budget on Oct. 28, with rising energy prices tightening a cost-of-living squeeze. Like other countries, Britain also needs to find money to increase defense spending to counter threats from Russia.
That means tax rises or spending cuts – or both – could be on the cards.
One thing that might bring an economic boost is to ease some of the trade barriers erected by Brexit. Burnham has pledged closer ties with the European Union, but it’s unclear how close.
Under Starmer, Labour was elected in 2024 on a promise not to seek to rejoin the bloc or enter its single market for goods, services and employment. Many Labour members would like to break that pledge, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said last week that the U.K. and EU should start negotiations “where everything is on the table.”
Burnham has said that’s a discussion for another time. Meanwhile, progress toward closer ties has been slow.
An EU-U.K. reset summit initially penciled in for July has slipped to November at the earliest because the two sides are wrangling over the bloc’s “made in Europe” rules, which the U.K. says will hurt British producers.
Ford said that unlike Starmer, who quickly squandered the public’s goodwill, Burnham has held onto his reputation “as an optimist and an effective communicator.” But he said Burnham's “really stern test” is yet to come.
“The bills are still going to land on the doormat,” Ford said. “He’s going to have to be the prime minister who can sell the average voter on, ‘Yes, that is indeed a bowl of cold porridge in front of you, but it will get better.’”
Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham and his wife Marie-France Van Heel arrive for the Labour Party Conference at the ACC Liverpool, in Liverpool, England,, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)
