2011 MTV Video Music Awards

The 2011 MTV Video Music Awards took place on August 28, at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, honoring the best music videos from the previous year. On July 20, the nominees were announced. Katy Perry received the most nominations this year at ten, followed by Adele, and Kanye West, who were both tied at seven.^[1] A Britney Spears tribute was held, consisting of adult and children dancers alike, they wore costumes based on the music videos of Spears. Hamish Hamilton directed the show.

2011 MTV Video Music Awards

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Nokia Theatre (Los Angeles, California)

United States

Katy Perry and Adele (3 each)

Katy Perry (10)

www.mtv.com/vma/2011/

MTV and VH1

Amy Doyle
Garrett English
Jesse Ignjatovic
Dave Sirulnick

Hamish Hamilton

At the ceremony, Katy Perry won three awards, including top prize Video of the Year for "Firework". Adele also won three awards, all in the technical fields, including Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Editing for "Rolling in the Deep". Britney Spears won a total of two awards, Best Pop Video for her single "Till the World Ends" and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for her influence and impact in music. Lady Gaga also won two awards, including Best Female Video for "Born This Way".^[2] Other winners included Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Tyler, the Creator, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West (shared with Perry), Foo Fighters, and the Beastie Boys who all won one apiece.^[3]^[4]

During the awards ceremony, Beyoncé revealed that she was pregnant with her first child, when she ended her performance of "Love on Top" (2011).^[5] The Huffington Post later confirmed that Knowles was five-months pregnant and her pregnancy announcement had broken the "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" Twitter record, receiving 8,868 tweets per second.^[6] MTV reported that Knowles' performance of "Love on Top" and the announcement of her pregnancy at the awards ceremony combined with Britney Spears tribute helped 2011's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers. In addition, data from Google Insights showed that the most searched for term from August 29, 2011 to September 4, 2011 was "Beyonce pregnant" which reached 'breakout' levels – a term used by Google to describe a search with an increase of over 5,000 percent.^[7]

– opened the show and introduced the first set of presenters

Kevin Hart

and Nicki Minaj – presented Best Pop Video

Jonah Hill

and Shaun White – presented Best Rock Video

Miley Cyrus

Seth Rogen, Jack Black (as the Beastie Boys) and Odd Future – presented Best Hip-Hop Video

Will Ferrell

and Nicki Minaj - performed a comedy sketch

Beavis and Butt-Head

and Chord Overstreet – presented Best Collaboration

Demi Lovato

and Paul Rudd – introduced Pitbull, Ne-Yo and Nayer

Rick Ross

– introduced Adele

Katy Perry

– presented Best Male Video

Kim Kardashian

and Victoria Justice – introduced Chris Brown

Joe Jonas

(as Jo Calderone) – introduced the Britney Spears tribute performance and presented the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award

Lady Gaga

and Lady Gaga – introduced Beyoncé

Britney Spears

and Taylor Lautner – presented Best New Artist

Selena Gomez

and Zoe Saldana – introduced Young the Giant

Jared Leto

Sammi Giancola, Snooki, Deena Nicole Cortese and JWoww – presented Best Female Video

Cloris Leachman

– presented the Amy Winehouse tribute introducing Tony Bennett and Bruno Mars

Russell Brand

– introduced a clip of his recording sessions with Amy Winehouse

Tony Bennett

– introduced a clip of The Hunger Games

Jennifer Lawrence

– presented Video of the Year

Katie Holmes

– introduced Lil Wayne

Drake

– "Rolling in the Deep"

Adele

– "Make Some Noise"

Beastie Boys

– "Grenade"

Bruno Mars

– "Yonkers"

2011 MTV Video Music Awards