Taylor Swift absolved Kanye West of last year’s on-stage sin with one sombre song, and Mr West, also in song, beat himself up once again over his misbehaviour.
The Swift-West drama took centre stage at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, with both superstars either addressing or dancing around the incident that will not die.
Both dramatic performances delivered on pre-show hype of a Kanye-Taylor sequel and overshadowed the evening’s other moments, including Lady Gaga’s eight-win sweep. Among her awards was video of the year for Bad Romance.
The stage for both songs was set last year, when Mr West interrupted Ms Swift’s acceptance speech, saying her trophy should have gone to Beyonce.
The incident left Ms Swift with hurt feelings, but Mr West was the one who was seriously damaged, as intense backlash made him Mr Unpopularity.
While Mr West did not address the trophy-gate incident directly on-stage, he rapped and sang a song that mocked the boorish behaviour that upstaged his music: “I always find something wrong; you’ve been putting up with my (expletive) for too long,” he said, before launching into an unprintable chorus, which included the line: “Let’s have a toast to scumbags.”
While Ms Swift is known for skewering those who have done her wrong in song, for Mr West, she offered an olive branch with her song Innocent, written earlier this year.
She sang: “Everyone of us has messed up, too ... I hope you remember today is never too late to be brand new.”
The 20-year-old’s poignant and powerful ode didn’t criticise Mr West. Instead she sympathised with his difficult time in the spotlight and Mr West’s own admissions that his ego often gets in his own way.
“Thirty-two and still growing up now; who you are is not what you did,” she sang softly, adding: “You’re still an innocent.”
Lady Gaga accepted her video of the year award with an outfit sure to anger animal rights activists: a dress and hat made of what seemed to be cuts of raw beef, including a meat purse. It was one of her three typically outrageous outfits of the evening.
Cher – an over-the-top diva from a different era – gave Lady Gaga her award and noted she had been raising eyebrows while Gaga “was still Baby Gaga”.
Lady Gaga was teary-eyed when accepting her trophies, and sang the title of her new album as she accepted the last award: Born This Way.
Compared to the pathos of Ms Swift and Mr West, there were few other highlights, despite performances from Usher, Eminem and Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Linkin Park, and appearances by Nicki Minaj and the cast of MTV’s own Jersey Shore.
Host Chelsea Handler gave the show its traditional bawdiness, though her jokes often fell flat.
A pre-taped portion of her opening featured the host getting spanked multiple times by show participants in a backstage hallway before running into the recently freed Lindsay Lohan, who also gave her a smack.
“Have you been drinking?” Ms Lohan demanded from Ms Handler. “Do you think anyone wants to work with a drunk? Take it from me! They don’t!”
Later, on stage, Ms Handler implored the all-star audience to get wild.
But it was a relatively tame night; perhaps, given Mr West’s antics last year, the stars had learned a lesson.
List of winners
Collaboration: Lady Gaga featuring Beyonce, Telephone
Female video: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance
Male video: Eminem, Not Afraid
Hip-hop video: Eminem, Not Afraid
New artiste: Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris, Baby
Pop video: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance
Rock video: 30 Seconds to Mars, Kings and Queens
Dance music video: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance
Art direction: Florence and the Machine, Dog Days Are Over
Choreography: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance
Cinematography: Jay Z and Alicia Keys, Empire State of Mind
Direction: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance
Editing: Lady Gaga, Bad Romance
Special effects: Muse, Uprising
Breakthrough video: The Black Keys, Tighten Up