Of the ten double award winners, seven are women, two are men and only one belongs to a group.
Today’s announcement that Katy Perry will receive the Video Vanguard Award at the 2024 Video Music Awards on Wednesday, September 11, puts her in distinguished company. Perry is only the 10th artist to receive both of the VMAs’ top honors – the Vanguard Award and Video of the Year, the latter of which she won in 2011 for “Firework.”
Of the ten double honorees, seven are women, two are men and only one is a group. Three are black. One is British. One is from Barbados.
Additionally, Perry hosted the 2017 VMAs. None of the other winners of either VMA laurels have ever hosted the show.
MTV has presented these two awards since the very first show on September 14, 1984 – although there has been no Video Vanguard winner for 13 years, but several in seven years.
The first winner of the Video of the Year award was, surprisingly, The Cars’ “You Might Think.” (Most expected Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to win.) The first winners of the Video Vanguard Award were the Beatles and director Richard Lester, who pioneered the form in two 1960s films (The night of a hard day And Help!) and David Bowie, who also performed at that first show. In a pre-recorded segment from London, he sang “Blue Jean,” which later entered the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Here are the 10 artists in VMAs history who have won both the MTV Video Vanguard Award and Video of the Year.
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Madonna
Vanguard Award: Madonna was, fittingly, the first woman to be awarded the Vanguard. She was 28 when she received the award in 1986.
Video of the year: The Queen of Pop finally won in 1998 for “Ray of Light.” It was her third nomination in the category. She had received consecutive nominations in 1989 and 1990 for her classic videos for “Like a Prayer” and “Vogue.” In 2006, she was nominated for the fourth time for “Hung Up.”
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Peter Gabriel
Vanguard Award: Gabriel was 37 when he won the Vanguard in 1987. He won it the same year he won Video of the Year, a double feat only one other artist has ever achieved. (Read more.)
Video of the year: Gabriel won for the incredibly imaginative “Sledgehammer,” which still holds the record for most wins for a single video (nine). Six years later, he was nominated again for “Digging in the Dirt.”
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REM
Vanguard Award: In 1995, REM became the third American band to receive this honor, following Bon Jovi (1991) and Guns N’ Roses (1992).
Video of the year: The band won on their first nomination in 1991 for the stunning clip of their big hit “Losing My Religion.” They received two consecutive nominations in 1993 and 1994 for “Man on the Moon” and “Everybody Hurts.”
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Britney Spears
Vanguard Award: Spears was 29 when she received the award in 2011. Her award was presented by Lady Gaga, who will join this list once she and MTV can agree on the correct year for her Vanguard presentation. (Gaga received MTV’s “Tricon” award in 2020, the only time the show has given out the prize to date.) She won video of the year in 2010 for “Bad Romance.”
Video of the year: Spears won in 2008 for “Piece of Me.” Four years earlier, she was nominated for “Toxic” and again in 2009 for “Womanizer.”
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Justin Timberlake
Vanguard Award: Timberlake became the second (and youngest) artist to win both awards on the same night, accomplishing the feat in 2013 when he was 32 years old.
Video of the year: He won for “Mirrors.” It was his fifth (and most recent) nomination in the category, following his *NSYNC-era hits “Bye Bye Bye” (2000) and “Gone” (2002) and his solo hits “Cry Me a River” (2003) and “What Goes Around… Comes Around” (2007).
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Beyonce
Vanguard Award: The award was presented to the then 32-year-old Beyoncé in 2014. She was the second black woman to receive this honor after Janet Jackson in 1990. Beyoncé was presented with the award by her husband Jay-Z and her then two-year-old daughter Blue Ivy Carter.
Video of the year: Beyoncé has won twice, in 2009 for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” – “one of the best videos of all time,” as one authority put it – and again in 2016 for “Formation.” She has also been nominated for “Irreplaceable” (2007); “Telephone” (2010), a collaboration with Lady Gaga; “Drunk in Love” (2014), a collaboration with Jay-Z; “7/11” (2015); and “Apeshit” (2018), another collaboration with Jay-Z (as The Carters).
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Rihanna
Vanguard Award: The award was presented to Rihanna, then 28, in 2016. Her frequent collaborator Drake presented the prize.
Video of the year: Rih has also won twice, for “Umbrella” (featuring Jay-Z) in 2007 and “We Found Love,” a collaboration with Calvin Harris, in 2012. She was also nominated for “Take Care” (2012), a collaboration with Drake, and “Wild Thoughts” (2017), a collaboration with DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller.
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P!nk
Vanguard Award: P!nk was 37 when she received the award in 2017.
Video of the year: She won in 2001 for the all-star remake of LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade,” which also starred Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim and Mýa and featured Missy Elliott. Surprisingly, this is her only nomination for Video of the Year.
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Missy Elliott
Vanguard Award: Elliott was 48 when she received the award in 2019. She was the first female rapper to receive the award, which was previously presented to her by another rapper, Cardi B.
Video of the year: She has won twice, once as a guest artist and once as a lead actress. She won in 2001 as a guest artist on the all-star remake of LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade” by Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya and P!nk. Two years later, she won again for her own “Work It.” She was the second artist, after Eminem, to win twice in the category. She was also nominated for “Get Ur Freak On” (2001).
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Katy Perry
Vanguard Award: Perry, 39, is set to accept the award at this year’s show on September 11.
Video of the year: She won the award for Video of the Year in 2011 for “Firework”. The following year she was nominated again for “Wide Awake”.