Taylor Swift and Eminem both made history at the 2024 VMAs, which took place at the UBS Arena in New York on Wednesday (September 11).
Swift won seven awards, giving her a career-long total of 30 Moonpersons, tying her with Beyoncé as the biggest winner in the show’s history. (Bey has won 26 awards alone, plus two with The Carters and two with Destiny’s Child.) Eminem won two awards, surpassing Peter Gabriel as the biggest male winner in the show’s history.
Many of the awards went as expected. After historic success over the past two years, it was likely that Swift would maintain her dominance, which she did. Eminem’s win in the best hip-hop category and SZA’s win in the best R&B category were also no surprises. Both artists topped the Billboard 200 with their latest albums. Tyla’s “Water,” a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, was also a sure-fire candidate for the best Afrobeat award.
It was also no surprise that women fared well in the voting overall. This is the seventh year in a row that a woman has won the award for Best New Artist; the sixth year in a row that a woman has won the award for a video for ever; the fifth year in a row that a female artist has won the award for Song of the Year; and the fourth year in a row that a woman has won the award for Best Latino. The last male artist to win the Video Vanguard Award was Ye, then known as Kanye West, in 2015.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any surprises at the show. Here are the biggest snubs and surprises at the 2024 VMAs.
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Surprise: Katy Perry
The pop star won the VMA award for her most famous performance with her remote performance of “Roar” that closed the 2013 show. She sang the song at Brooklyn’s Empire-Fulton Ferry Park, surpassing memorable VMA moments like Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” from the 1984 show opening and Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady” and “The Way I Am” from 2000, during which the rap icon was accompanied by over 100 Eminem lookalikes.
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Rejections: Charli XCX, GloRilla, Olivia Rodrigo, Teddy Swims
All four artists were eliminated despite receiving four nominations each. GloRilla even sang “Yeah Glo!” on the show.
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Surprise: K-Pop winning streak in a category of all genres
We all know that K-Pop is hot, but did you know that The hot? A K-pop group has won the award for best group in any category across all genres six years in a row. Seventeen won this year. Blackpink won last year. BTS won the four years before that. Clearly, this is not a niche market.
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Surprise: Sabrina Carpenter
Given Swift’s lightning streak at the awards show, it’s a bit surprising that she didn’t win song of the year, like she did last year with “Anti-Hero.” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” beat out “Fortnight” for song of the year, but “Fortnight” beat out Carpenter’s follow-up hit “Please Please Please” for song of the summer. (Would “Espresso” have won song of the summer, too? Discuss it among yourselves.)
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Surprise: Benson Boone
Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” won for Best Alternative Song. The song was a multi-format hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 4 on Adult Contemporary, No. 31 on Rock & Alternative Airplay, and No. 33 on Alternative Airplay. At the VMAs, it probably would have been classified in the Pop, Rock, or Alternative categories. Had he been nominated for Best Pop, Boone would have been the only male artist in an all-female field this year.
