The MTV Video Music Awards will give out the lifetime achievement award on Sept. 27.
By Andrew Unterberger
With Labor Day approaching and the end of summer officially imminent, one of the saving graces of this page of the 2026 calendar will be coming in three and a half weeks, with the airing of the 43rd annual MTV Video Music Awards.
Nominees for this year’s awards were announced on Aug. 18, with the biggest nominees including superstars Ariana Grande (seven, including artist of the year and video of the year for “Hate That I Made You Love Me”), Sabrina Carpenter (also seven, including AOTY and VOTY for “Tears”) and Bruno Mars (five, including AOTY and VOTY for “I Just Might”). But the biggest nominee of all was perhaps the most legendary pop star in VMAs history: Madonna, with 11 nominations — including AOTY and VOTY for her Confessions II — The Film — and a good chance to add to her 19 career wins at the awards.
But what has yet to be revealed is the recipient of perhaps the most prestigious VMA of them all: the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award. That honor is handed out annually to a career great in the field of music video, whose “outstanding contributions” and “profound impact” on the form MTV deems worthy of rewarding for its highest honor. Winners during the award’s early days in the mid-’80s included proto-MTV icons like The Beatles, as well as influential video auteurs like Julien Temple and Wayne Isham. But in recent years, the award has typically gone to a pop star, usually one with a decade or two of hits to their name (which they can draw from in a much-hyped, career-spanning performance on the actual broadcast).
