Taylor Swift was the big winner at the MTV Europe Awards in Manchester last night, picking up four awards for Best Artist, Best Live Act, Best US act and Best Video for Fortnight, her collab with Post Malone.
Swift couldn’t be there in person – she’s busy finishing off the final North American leg of the record-breaking Eras tour, but the ceremony – the first time it’s been in the UK for seven years – did feature a decent line up of global icons. Shawn Mendes performed and picked up the honour for Best Canadian Act (yes there are rather a lot of awards), Nineties hip hop legend Busta Rhymes was awarded the EMA’s Global Icon award and performed a medley of his greatest hits, including Breck Ya Neck and Touch It.
Meanwhile the Pet Shop Boys turned up to collect the inaugural Pop Pioneers award and closed the show by performing their version of the Bowie/Mott The Hoople classic All The Young Dudes and West End Girls.
Other notable winners were Sabrina Carpenter who picked up Best Song for her huge summer hit Espresso, Ariana Grande won Best Pop Act and Eminem was awarded Best Hip Hop act.
Then there was Tyla (not to be confused with Tyler The Creator). The new-ish South African pop act was another big winner on the night, picking up three awards for Best Afrobeats, Best R ‘n B and Best African act. She lost out though on the Best New act to Benson Boone, the American singer who opened the night performing his hit Beautiful Things on a gold grand piano that appeared to be floating in mid air.
Other names who turned up to present awards include old skool hip hop icon LL Cool J, actors Sam Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Turner-Smith, as well as Mabel and her incredibly cool mum, Neneh Cherry.
The show was hosted by the ever-dependable Rita Ora, who took time to pay tribute to ex-One Direction singer Liam Payne, who died last month in Buenos Aires. Ora and Payne had a close friendship and indeed recorded a song together in 2018, For You, which was on the soundtrack to the film Fifty Shades Freed.
Visibly moved, she said: “I want to take a moment to remember someone. Liam Payne was one of the kindest people I knew. He had the biggest heart and he left such a mark on this world.”
