Before the Snake, Britney Sat Down With a Rock ’n’ Roll Legend
As we continue our celebration of thee MTV Video Music Awards look-back, this time around we’re rewinding to the nostalgic pre-show — when Britney Spears met Mick Jagger.
She was the future of pop. He was already history. MTV put them face to face for a one-on-one pop-culture moment during the 2001 VMAs, held September 6 at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House.
And the generational contrast was almost too perfect. Britney was 19 and already one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. Mick had been fronting The Rolling Stones since before her parents were teenagers.
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MTV VMAs Rewind: Britney Meets Mick
Revisit one of the stranger and more charming generational crossovers from MTV’s peak VMA era.
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Britney Had Already Taken on a Rolling Stones Classic
The meeting had an extra layer of VMA history behind it. Just one year earlier, Britney had opened her 2000 VMA performance with a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” before tearing into “Oops!… I Did It Again.”
When Jagger was asked whether he was a Britney fan, he gave her credit for it: “Of course I am,” before remembering that she had performed one of the Stones’ songs the year before.
That is what makes the clip so fun now. There is no grand ceremony to the meeting. No dramatic introduction. Just MTV casually placing two completely different eras of pop stardom next to each other and letting the moment happen.
Then Britney Went Inside and Made VMA History Again
The pre-show encounter was only the warm-up. Later that night Britney walked onto the VMA stage for “I’m a Slave 4 U” and delivered the now-iconic performance with an albino Burmese python draped across her shoulders.
So in the space of one VMA night, MTV gave us Britney chatting with Mick Jagger outside and then creating one of the defining performances of her career inside.
Peak MTV really did operate on a different frequency.
Britney Spears Meets Mick Jagger at the 2001 MTV VMAs
Revisit the MTV pre-show moment that put the pop princess and Rolling Stones frontman face to face before the 2001 Video Music Awards.
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Sources: MTV archival VMA coverage; TIME. Images: MTV.
