“They decide”: Madonna and Taylor Swift’s demands for VMAs night revealed

Taylor Swift made history with her latest awards, while Madonna opened the ceremony with a spectacular performance, in a hall filled with well-known showbiz names.

According to The Sun, Madonna did not walk the red carpet and asked that her performance be photographed only by approved photographers.

“Madonna and Taylor are the most powerful women in music, so what they ask for becomes reality. MTV was ready to adapt to any of their requests,” a source told the publication.

The same source claimed that Madonna had made it clear she wanted to look as good as possible and organisers took care not to publish photographs with which she was not happy.

Madonna opened the show at the Peacock Theater with an eight-minute performance, where she was joined on stage by Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift reportedly spent only about 15 minutes, despite receiving three awards during the evening. According to the report, the singer waited for the red carpet to close and posed for photographers at around 16:20, only 10 minutes before the ceremony started.

Afterwards, she stayed away from the main hall until 17:54, when she returned to receive the Artist Director award and to present the video clip for “Patient Zero”. After that, she left again.

Taylor returned at 18:45 to receive the Video of the Year award for “The Fate of Ophelia”, before leaving again.

However, a source gave another explanation for her absence from the hall.

“Taylor’s team insisted that she did not want to distract other artists by staying in the hall all evening, so she decided to follow most of the ceremony from backstage,” the source said.

With her latest awards, Swift took her total number of MTV VMA trophies to 33, passing Beyoncé and becoming the artist with the most awards in the history of this event. Madonna, on the other hand, won seven trophies, including the Artist of the Year award and Best Collaboration for her collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, “Bring Your Love”.