Before Sunday night, it had been 23 years since Madonna last performed at the MTV Video Music Awards. It had been 27 years since she actually won a VMA.
But by the time this year’s show ended, the artist formerly known as Ms. Ciccone had proven, yet again, that she is the undisputed Queen of Pop.
Not only did Madge open the festivities with performances of Bring Your Love” (ft. Sabrina Carpenter) and “Danceteria Afterhours” (ft. Charli xcx), but she competed for a record 13 awards — and won seven, including Best Dance, Best Collaboration and Artist of the Year.
“I spent the last year and a half finding myself, believing in myself and really making the music that I wanted to make,” she said when she accepted the award for Artist of the Year. “And to me that really is the definition of being an artist.”
The only other star to be nominated 13 times in a single year was Lady Gaga in 2010.
Lady Gaga wouldn’t exist, of course, without Madonna. Nor would the only performers who’ve amassed even more Moon Person statuettes than Gaga’s 22: Taylor Swift (33) and Beyoncé (30). Before Madonna, all the biggest pop superstars were men. Since Madonna, most of them have been women.
Between 1986 and 1999, Madge took home a total of 20 VMAs. As impressive as that tally is, it understates her influence. Every Madonna video was an event: the Fritz Lang-influenced “Express Yourself”; the fast-forward psychedelia of “Ray of Light”; the Catholic provocations of “Like a Prayer”; “Vogue’s” vintage glamour. Every VMA performance was scandalous, from “Like a Virgin” at Radio City Music Hall in 1984 to her medley-slash-makeout-session with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in 2003. And every move was pioneering: writing and producing her own songs; managing all aspects of her own career; remaking her image with each new release; challenging assumptions about race, gender and sexuality.
Everything that seems obvious now — the template her successors followed — was a risk in real time.
Madonna is 68 years old now. Her biggest Reagan Era rivals — Michael Jackson and Prince — are dead. Her own career receded in the 21st century. She never stopped releasing new music, but her relevance seemed to wane. That’s what happens to pop stars as they age.
Which is why her VMAs comeback on Sunday was so welcome. Madonna’s 2026 album “Confessions II” — conceived as a sequel to 2005’s “Confessions on a Dance Floor” — was a surprise critical and commercial hit, making her the first artist of the 2020s to top the Billboard 200 after doing the same in three previous decades. Fittingly, Madonna’s visual companion to “Confessions II” — a music video “album” of sorts that spans the disc’s first six songs and stars Sabrina Carpenter, Kate Moss and Benedict Cumberbatch, among many others — premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival and went viral online.
In other words, Madonna is still identifiably Madonna, even as she approaches her eighth decade on earth.
There are other legends who are still performing as senior citizens. Most are mere nostalgia acts. Some, like Bob Dylan, make good music on occasion. But at this point, none of them could be considered capital-P Pop Stars. Only Madonna is continuing to connect with the culture at large. It’s yet another first in a career full of them, and a testament to her enduring genius.
