Taylor Swift dominates MTV awards with nine out of 11 top honours

Taylor Swift has cleaned up at the MTV Video Music Awards and won the evening's top trophy, as Shakira accepted the night's prestigious Video Vanguard honour with a career-spanning performance.

Swift continued her global reign by scooping awards including Best Song, Best Pop and Best Direction, as well as the top competitive award for Video of the Year, which she won for her hit "Anti-Hero."

"This is unbelievable," Swift said on Tuesday as she accepted the night's top prize, which she also took home in 2022.

"I just want to say that the fact that this is a fan-voted award means so much to me."

Swift took home nine of the 11 awards she was up for, including artist of the year in a category made up entirely of women nominees for the first time in VMA history.

NSYNC reunited onstage for the first time in a decade to present her with the Best Pop award, leaving Swift, who is poised to post the first billion-dollar tour.

But she didn't perform on the night known far more for its spectacle than its awards.

Night's most prestigious honour

Lil Wayne opened the show in a nod to this year's 50th anniversary of hip hop, and Sean Combs -- known by his stage names Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy and Diddy -- delivered a career-spanning performance as he accepted the night's Global Icon lifetime achievement award.

"This is so surreal," said the 53-year-old from Harlem. "I started out as a paper boy."

And it was Shakira who scored the night's most prestigious honor for lifetime achievement, the Video Vanguard award that celebrates music video innovations.

The Colombian performer, 46, stole the show as she performed her signature dance, singing a bilingual medley including "She Wolf," "Te Felicito," "Objection (Tango)," "Whenever, Wherever" and "Hips Don't Lie."

"Thank you MTV. Thank you for being such a big part of my career since I was only 18 years old," Shakira said.

"Afrobeats grow big"

Rapper Nicki Minaj hosted the event for the second consecutive year, also debuting live her newest single, "Last Time I Saw You," which is slated for release on her album "Pink Friday 2" in November.

She won the night's award for Best Hip Hop, for "Super Freaky Girl."

Minaj also participated in the evening's tribute to five decades of hip hop, which also saw Lil Wayne return to the stage for a medley performance that included pioneers Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, LL Cool J, DMC of Run-DMC, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

Best R&B went to SZA, who did not attend, while South Korea's Stray Kids won the award for Best K-pop and later performed.

Nigeria's Rema won the prize for Best Afrobeats, a new category, for his remixed single "Calm Down" featuring Selena Gomez.

The song surpassed a billion streams on Spotify over the weekend.

"This means so much seeing Afrobeats grow this big," Rema said while accepting the trophy.