Taylor Swift to Perform at MTV VMAs

By Dano Nissen

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Taylor Swift will perform at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) just three days after the release of her new album “Lover.”

The show will broadcast live from Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Aug. 26 and will be her first televised performance following the album’s release.

Swift, who earned 10 VMA nominations for her songs “Me!” and “You Need to Calm Down,” is tied with Ariana Grande atop the leader board. Among the categories both Swift and Grande are up for is the coveted Video of the Year award — for “You Need to Calm Down” and “Thank U, Next,” respectively.

The singer last performed at the award ceremony in 2015, also going in with 10 nods. With seven nominations, “You Need to Calm Down” is Swift’s second-most nominated video next to “Bad Blood,” which had eight nominations. The singer is a seven-time VMA winner, taking home Video of the Year award for “Bad Blood” in 2015.

Swift has been a VMAs headline-grabber in the past, though not usually of her own doing. In 2009, Kanye West interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech for best female video (she won for the song “You Belong With Me”). In 2015, Swift ignited a Twitter feud after responding to Nicki Minaj’s criticism of the awards for not nominating the rapper’s video for “Anaconda.” Leading into this year, there hasn’t been a shortage of drama behind-the-scenes — specifically, Swift’s public criticism of Scooter Braun, who recently purchased Big Machine Label Group , home to the master recordings for her first six albums, from Scott Borchetta, the label’s founder and chief executive.

In a June 30 Tumblr post, Swift wrote : “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to  Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. … I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract,  Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past.”