Her first VMAs performance in 23 years turned into a two-song Confessions II showcase, and the night ended with her collecting Artist of the Year.
Madonna hadn't stood on a VMAs stage since 2003. On Sunday night in Los Angeles, she fixed that with a two-song opener that ran through half her address book.
The show itself started late. Football on CBS pushed the 7:30 p.m. ET slot back a full 22 minutes, and host Snoop Dogg later summed up what followed in one word: Madonna "kilt" it.
She opened with "Bring Your Love," her Confessions II collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, seated at a piano before dancers lifted her onto a moving platform that circled a gospel choir, working through choreography lifted from her own short film. Carpenter matched her beat for beat in a black-and-white look. Then came the pivot, a men's-room set piece for "Danceteria Afterhours," a reworked version of Madonna's original "Danceteria" that folded in Charli xcx, who stepped out of a stall to sing about her own arrival, closing with the line "Now I'm singing with Madonna at the VMAs."
The track samples Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side," and the overhead projections paid Reed his own tribute mid-song.
What made the number a genuine reunion, though, was who else showed up. Tony Ward, who appeared in Madonna's Sex book and the "Justify My Love" video, turned up in the crowd of dancers. So did DJ Fab Five Freddy, longtime friend Debi Mazar, and Julia Garner, who has been attached for years to play Madonna in a biopic that still hasn't materialised. Seth Rogen, her co-star on the next season of The Studio, made a cameo too, alongside producer Andrew Watt, singer Sombr and Charli's friend Gabbriette. Just Jared counted eight names in the credits by the time the lights came up.
Madonna stuck around for the rest of the ceremony, and she had reason to. She walked in with 13 nominations. Best Collaboration went to her and Carpenter for "Bring Your Love," and onstage she needled Carpenter for taking her time replying to the collab request in the first place, before calling her a genuine professional who still writes lyrics out by hand. Carpenter's response was two words: "Everyone, Madonna."
The bigger prize came later. Madonna took Artist of the Year, thanking co-writer and producer Stuart Price, her manager Guy Oseary, and MTV itself, reminding the room that she'd performed at the very first VMAs back in 1984.
Whether this counts as a comeback depends on your definition, since Madonna has never really left. But a live VMAs slot after 23 years away, stacked with faces from three different decades of her career, is the kind of statement that doesn't need a follow-up single to land. The question now is whether MTV can get her back before another two decades pass.
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