Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek’s network of contributors
Taylor Swift has been slaying the charts for much of the year — with her 11th album The Tortured Poets Department having topped the Billboard 200 for 14 weeks. And this week, she just made another major moment in her career even bigger.
At this year’s upcoming MTV Video Music Awards, Swift has 12 nominations, making her the most nominated artist at the 2024 VMAs. Earlier this month, Swift was up for 10 categories — eight for her “Fortnight” music video, as well as nods in the artist of the year and best pop categories. But upon the reveal of the new social categories Friday, August 30, Swift has added two more nominations to the list.
The categories include Song of the Summer, for which she is nominated with “Fortnight,” as well as Most Iconic Performance, for her 2009 performance of her hit single, “You Belong With Me.”
Thomas Niedermueller/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
While the “Fortnight” video came as a pleasant surprise for fans on the same day as The Tortured Poets Department‘s release, putting the video together was no easy task. In a recent interview for The New York Times, Swift’s “Fortnight” collaborator Post Malone — who is up for 11 VMAs himself — said Swift arrived to the set in a golf cart covered in umbrellas, in order to avoid being seen by the paparazzi.
“I can’t even imagine being at their level — it must suck,” said Malone.
Additional social categories include Best Group and Best Trending Video, and fans can vote for all of these categories through MTV’s Instagram Story. Though Swift isn’t confirmed to perform at the VMAs, she has had some pretty epic moments at past iterations of the ceremony.
In 2022, she announced her 10th studio album after accepting the Video of the Year award for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version).” Back in 2019, she brought out a killer selection of drag performers in an epic performance of “You Need To Calm Down.”
Fans can tune into the VMAs on Wednesday, September 11 on MTV, or live stream the show on Paramount+.
