• Madonna leads the 2026 MTV Video Music Award nominations with 11 nods, more than any other artist, according to Billboard’s coverage of the official nominee list.
• Taylor Swift trails with 9 nominations; Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter each earned 7.
• The ceremony airs Sunday, September 27, 2026, from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, simulcast on CBS, MTV, and Paramount+.
• It’s a full-circle moment: Madonna’s first-ever VMA performance, in 1984, is still considered one of the most legendary in the show’s history.

More than four decades after she first scandalized MTV’s audience, Madonna is back on top of the VMA nominee list. She landed 11 nominations for the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, the most of any artist this year, according to Billboard’s rundown of the official nominations, which were unveiled in August. Her nods span Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Collaboration, Best Dance, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Choreography, and Best Visual Effects.

A crowded but Madonna-led field

Taylor Swift is close behind with 9 nominations, followed by Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter with 7 apiece, and Bruno Mars, PinkPantheress, and Zara Larsson tied at 5 each, per Billboard. If Madonna were to sweep all 11 categories, Billboard notes she’d tie Beyoncé and Taylor Swift for the title of most-awarded artist in VMA history, at 30 wins apiece. The ceremony airs live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, September 27, 2026, simulcast across CBS, MTV, and Paramount+.

The night that started it all

It’s a fitting career bookend. Madonna’s very first VMA appearance, at the inaugural ceremony on September 14, 1984, at Radio City Music Hall, is still regarded as one of the show’s defining moments. She descended a 17-foot wedding cake in a white wedding dress to perform “Like a Virgin,” and midway through the number one of her stiletto heels came loose. Rather than break character, she dropped to the floor and rolled around the stage, dress riding up as she reached for the shoe, and finished the performance flat on her back, according to Biography.com’s account of the night.

The moment instantly made her a star of the still-young network. Former MTV programming executive Les Garland later said simply that she stole the show that night, per the Hollywood Reporter’s retrospective on the performance. The album that performance was promoting, “Like a Virgin,” went on to become her first number-one album and, according to Biography.com, the first album by a female artist to sell more than five million copies in the United States.

Forty-two years, still leading the pack

From a scandal on a wedding cake to the top of a nominee list decades later, Madonna’s VMA story has effectively bookended the award show’s entire existence. Whether she adds to her win total this September or not, the nomination count alone confirms what her earliest fans already knew back in 1984 — she was never going to be an easy act to follow.