For the first time, the MTV Video Music Awards did not air primarily on MTV. You could watch the 2025 show there, but it was proudly broadcast on the CBS Television Network, which also meant that an old friend, LL Cool J, was brought on to host. Did this mean a bigger show? Something that Paramount Skydance Corporation would be happy to have boost ratings in place of the departing Grammy Awards? You’d think so. Instead, there were multiple performances that were just concert recordings. A Video Vanguard who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but her native Long Island. And the world having to hear Yungblud pretend to be Ozzy Osbourne. It’s not all bad, of course, as Sabrina Carpenter and Lady Gaga (even from a different venue) did their best to bring some pizzazz to a show typically known for its over-the-top nature. Below, find some takeaways from a shaky attempt to make a new Music’s Biggest Night.
Sabrina Carpenter Steals the Show
Clairo should watch her back; there’s a new Gen-Z Teena Marie in town. Sabrina Carpenter emerged from a personally embossed manhole onto a New York street straight out of Ryan Murphy’s Pose to perform “Tears,” the release-day single from her new album, Man’s Best Friend. Colman Domingo in drag was cute and all, but it was a delight to see Carpenter flanked onstage by real drag performers and unequivocally calling for trans solidarity amid the White House’s continued attacks against trans rights. Call it playing the hits, but the hydrotechnics and Britney-lite choreo that closed out the number carried a glimmer of the bigger, better, brighter VMAs that once were.
–Walden Green
Sabrina Carpenter performs during the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards at UBS Arena on September 7, 2025, in Elmont, New York.Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for MTV
A Very Tame Doja Cat
Was she even trying? Doja Cat opened the show with an ’80s homage in the form of her new single “Jealous Type.” I’m not sure she was ever louder than her backing track. Overall, a very run-of-the-mill performance from an artist who hosted the VMAs just four years ago and wore a chair on her head. I suppose it’s a way of signaling that the former “Mooo!” breakout is entering a more serious phase of her career, but it’s missing the point that Doja Cat is at her best when over-the-top and comedic.
–Matthew Strauss
Is the Lady Gaga in the Room With Us?
For one of the most innovative live artists of her generation, not to mention a VMAs icon—her 2009 “Paparazzi” is still the one to beat—Lady Gaga’s VMAs appearance was a literal retread. She performed “Abracadabra” and “The Dead Dance” in a pre-taped segment recorded at a Madison Square Garden stop of her Mayhem Ball Tour, itself a near-recreation of her Coachella headlining set from earlier this year. Her towering red ballgown, crawling with dancers like The Nutracker’s Mother Ginger, had its impact blunted through screens upon screens, and her eventual absence was palpable in the room full of devotees. (Gaga did show up to accept Artist of the Year, but swiftly left for another MSG show.) A slight miss in the ongoing Gaga Goodwill Tour.
