Ring the alarm: Madonna is opening the VMAs again
Ring the alarm! Mark Your Calendar On Us: Madonna shall open the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards, marking the Queen of Pop’s first performance on the VMA stage in 23 years.
That means the show is not easing into anything. Madonna is taking the opening slot again — the same position she held in 2003, when Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera began “Like a Virgin” before Madonna emerged for “Hollywood,” with Missy Elliott joining the performance. Yes, that performance. The kiss. The reaction shots. The entire pop-culture detonation.
Mark Your Calendar
2026 MTV Video Music Awards
Madonna opens the night live on Sunday, September 27. Check the official nominees, watch information and streaming details before showtime.
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The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards air live Sunday, September 27 at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+, with MTV also carrying the night. MTV’s current voting pages list Madonna among this year’s major nominees, including Video of the Year and Artist of the Year.
And this is not some courtesy legacy booking. Madonna arrives with 11 nominations, leading this year’s field and putting her back at the center of the VMA machine more than four decades after she helped define what the show could even be.
Her relationship with the VMAs goes all the way back to the first ceremony in 1984, when “Like a Virgin” turned a wedding dress, a giant cake and one missing shoe into television history. She later gave the show “Vogue,” the 2003 pop summit with Britney and Christina, and enough VMA imagery to keep younger pop stars borrowing from the archive forever.
Madonna’s first VMA performance since the 2003 opener
Her last VMA performance was that 2003 opening number, making the 2026 return a true 23-year gap rather than a fuzzy “it’s been a while” statistic. And because Madonna is once again opening the telecast, the callback is especially clean: the Queen of Pop is walking back into the exact part of the show where she last left the stage.
What she will actually perform remains the fun part. Her current era centers on Confessions II, and “Confessions II – The Film” is among her major VMA nominees, but with Madonna the safest prediction has always been not to predict too much.
So yes, this is the one to actually mark down. Sunday night, 4:30 p.m. here on the West Coast. Madonna first. Everything else after.
Madonna’s 2026 MTV VMAs return on INYIM TikTok
Two INYIM Media TikTok posts accompany our countdown to Madonna’s return to the VMA stage.
Source: MTV; CBS; Rolling Stone; People.
