For a few short hours on Tuesday night, Newark, New Jersey morphed into the fashion capital of the world for the 2023 MTV VMAs. With New York City in the distance, the biggest names in music and entertainment descended onto the Prudential Center decked out in their rock and roll finery.
Prior to the ceremony, this year saw a slew of queer nominees with artists like Sam Smith, Kim Petras, Saucy Santana, Steve Lacy, and Janelle Monae among the luminaries up for the coveted Moonman statue in a variety of categories.
But in the end, white cis ally queen Taylor Swift wound up the big winner by taking home nine awards, including video, artist and song of the year. Welcome to her world domination era!
Among the LGBTQ+ winners were Ice Spice for Best New Artist, Anitta for Best Latin, Dove Cameron for Video For Good, Doja Cat for Best Art Direction, and Måneskin for Best Rock.
While the VMAs used to be appointment television responsible for serving historic performances such as Madonna singing “Like A Virgin” while writhing on the floor in a wedding dress in 1984, Madonna singing “Vogue” dressed in Marie Antoinette drag in 1990, and Madonna singing “Hollywood” while making out with Britney Spears and Xtina in 2003, in recent years it’s been sort of lackluster.
Thankfully, the powers that be upped the wattage by not just enlisting the new class of pop children on TikTok who don’t even know what Music TeleVision is (no offense to Olivia Rodrigo and Stray Kids) and reveled in millennial eleganza by reuniting ‘NSYNC, re-introducing Nelly Furtado to the world, honoring Shakira with the Video Vanguard Award, anointing Diddy as a Global Icon, and celebrating 50 years of hip-hop with a star-studded number featuring Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, LL Cool J, Doug E. Fresh, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj. Tens across the board!
The VMA pink carpet carpet featured a parade of head-turning style slays including lots of dapper dudes in white, divas in body-baring gowns, and even a hetero hunk in a leather minidress. Werk!
Click through to see all the fiercest lewks from the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards…
Rambeaux
Doja Cat and Jimbo look interesting.
Very creative.
drmiller
Look, no hate, truly. But can someone explain why we’re putting Chris Olsen in the same list as Nas, NSYNC, and Megan (+ others)? Clearly I’m jealous he’s at the VMAs and I am not but… be real. Why does anyone care?
Fahd
What a whole lot of fun! I’m wondering why this award show went ahead while others have been postponed because of the writers’ strike?
Major
Jimbo just always makes me want to smile.
Pietro D
OH! Yeh! A whole lot of fun!!!!!!! Sorry, but I HATE it.
Nothing to do with age as I’m 22, fully out & liberated.
I guess I got lucky in being gay and I’m always proud
of who I am and my queer community BUT, a lot of
those photos are pretty ugly and make me cringe!
Mostlikelytobedownvoted
Go change your diaper child. You’re not yourself with a diaper full of caca. By the way, if this is really you at 22, bitter, sour and void of joy, I pity the poor souls that will have to deal with you when you grow old enough to learn how to properly wipe your a-hole.
Rikki Roze
Except for Taylor Swift and Shakira’s outfits, there was no fashion at this award show. Just ugly clothes.
Claytonisahobo
Lance Bass has aged better than any of his fellow band mates.
FreddieW
The fishnet shirt was the only good look out of all that.
I thought Lil Nas X was hot when he performed on SNL, but I just changed my mind. And I don’t understand what Colton Haynes is wearing at all.
Kangol2
Lots of cute outfits, very on trend for 2023.