Taylor Swift Urges Fans To Vote, Thanks Travis Kelce As She Wins VMAs Top Prize

Taylor Swift won the Video of the Year award, the biggest prize at Wednesday night’s MTV Video Music Awards, for the music video of her song “Fortnight,” while also securing the Artist of the Year prize in a record-breaking night.
Key Facts
Swift also won the ‘Best Pop’ award given to the top pop artist, the best collaboration award for her team with Post Malone on “Fortnight” and the ‘Best Direction’ award for directing the “Fortnight” music video.

Swift thanked “my boyfriend Travis Kelce” during her final acceptance speech, adding “everything this man touches turns to happiness, fun and magic, so I want to thank him for adding that to our shoot.”

The pop star also thanked Post Malone, saying “there is a reason [he]…is everyone in music’s favorite person to collaborate with,” and then joked “it has taken me forever to stop him calling me ma’am.”

At the start of one speech, Swift said “Waking up this morning in New York… I’ve just been thinking about what happened 23 years ago” and then took a moment to acknowledge “everyone who lost a loved one and everyone that we lost,” on September 11.

Swift said she appreciated the fact that “this is a fan voted award” as she thanked her fans before reminding them: “If you’re over 18, please register to vote for something else that is important — the Presidential election.”

Key Background
Swift urging her fans to register to vote comes one day after she endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris shortly after the first presidential debate. In a post on her Instagram account, Swift hailed Harris as someone who “fights for the rights and causes I believe [in],” adding that she believes “we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.” The pop star’s post also addressed former President Donald Trump’s sharing of AI-generated images to suggest Swift had endorsed him, saying: “It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter.” Swift’s post also appeared to take a swipe at Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance’s comments about Democratic women by signing off the post as “Childless Cat Lady,” and using a photo of her holding her cat.

Surprising Fact
With five awards on Wednesday night, Swift overtook Beyoncé as the artist with the most wins at the VMAs. Swift has now 30 wins at the MTV-run awards, compared to Beyoncé’s 27, 25 of which are for her as a solo act. Swift also won her fight Video of the Year prize on Wednesday, extending her own record. Beyoncé, Eminem. Kendrick Lamar, Missy Elliott and Rihanna are the only other artists to have won the top VMA prize multiple times, each winning it twice