Madonna certainly had a celebration to remember at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards.
Madonna, 68, was up for 13 trophies during the Sunday, September 27, awards ceremony, ultimately taking home seven Moon Person statuettes for Best Collaboration (“Bring Your Love” with Sabrina Carpenter), Artist of the Year, Best Dance (“Confessions II – The Film”), Best Album (Confessions II), Best Long Form Video (“Confessions II – The Film”), Best Choreography (“Confessions II – The Film”) and Best Cinematography (“Confessions II – The Film”).
“First of all, I would like thank my fingers because I can always count on them,” she began her Artist of the Year acceptance speech. “Some of you were probably not born — most of you were probably not born — but I performed at the first VMAs 43 years ago.”
She continued, “I spent the last year and half finding myself, believing in myself and making the music I want to make, and to me, that really is the definitely of being an artist.”
The pop star — who opened Sunday’s show for the first time in two decades — earned the most nominations this year in the categories of Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Album, Best Collaboration, Best Dance, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Choreography, Best Visual Effects and Best Long Form Video.
Madonna, already a 20-time VMA winner, was recognized for her 15th studio album, Confessions II, a sequel to 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor. Upon its July release, Confessions II debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
“I was supposed to make a movie about my life. I worked on my script for two years and spent two years at Universal Studios with the line producers doing budgeting and casting,” Madonna told Interview magazine in June of returning to the recording studio. “We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget. I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget.”
Instead, the Queen of Pop sought another way to unleash her inner creativity.
“I thought the world is in a very dark place and people need to dance. I hadn’t worked with Stuart [Price] for a long time,” she recalled of the producer. “We’d just done the Celebration Tour together, but besides that, I didn’t really see or speak to him for probably 15 years.”
She continued at the time, “I was living in New York and I reached out to him, thinking, ‘What if we tried to make Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II, and reenter the world of inspirational dance music?’ So I came to London and went to his studio, and we were just playing around to see if there was magic between us.”
Turns out, Madonna and Price admittedly still had a “good” spark in the studio together.
“I went through all this darkness in the beginning, writing these songs with Stuart, and then we went full circle, and I’m like, ‘OK, now what happens? How do we get out of this?’” she added to the magazine. “What happens when you walk into a nightclub or walk onto the dance floor or go to a rave? [Life] can be [heavy], but I always push through and I’m a survivor.”
Madonna has been a staple at the VMAs since the first show in 1984, where she sang “Like a Virgin” in a wedding dress. She also famously performed “Vogue” in 1990 and kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in 2003.
