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MTV Video Music Awards 2019 (VMAs): Taylor Swift performance slammed by fans, but later tops night with Video of the Year

While Taylor Swift shaded her 2009 VMAs Kanye incident, many fans are also shading her online for her opening performance of 'You Need To Calm Down' and 'Lover'.

It's a Taylor Swift-kind of night.

Swift has been nominated 10 times for the MTV VMAs this year, split between the videos for her songs 'Me!' and 'You Need To Calm Down', both from her latest album, 'Lover'. And Taylor has begun the night with a spark! She won the top prize — video of the year — for “You Need to Calm Down" and it saw her and a number of the cast members from the video appear onstage to accept the honor.

During her interview on the red carpet, when she was asked about her award-winning streak, Swift replied, "You don't know that. You never know what can happen on this show, as I've learned" reminding us that Swift and VMAs have another thing in common -  the 'Kanye Debacle of 2009'. Here's a recap: when Taylor Swift was accepting her award for 'Best Female Video', for 'You Belong With Me' Kanye West did not like it one bit, so he jumped on stage, grabbed the mic from Swift and proceeded to tell her and the audience that Beyonce should have won for 'Single Ladies'. It has been exactly a decade since he famously crashed her acceptance speech for female video of the year. The relationship between Swift and Kanye has come a long way since, making up and breaking up again. Things have come to such a pass that we even think that Taylor 'Swifted' Kanye with the first song on her recent album 'Lover', 'I Forgot That You Existed'.

However, since today's focus is on the VMAs let's take a look at what Swift brought to the awards and it wasn't without controversy. In her first VMAs appearance since she won the Video of the Year for 'Bad Blood' from her album 1989, Swift performed 'You Need To Calm Down' and 'Lover'. However, while fans loved her performance (and the addition of her BFF Todrick Hall to her backup dancers), some were wondering whether she was lip-syncing for the performance of 'You Need To Calm Down'. 

Some viewers were also disappointed with her singing, saying that her voice was off and that she came off flat. Most fans gave her the benefit of the doubt, asking MTV sound guys to fix their system.

Taylor is still winning big, however, winning 'Video of the Year' and 'Video for Good' for her song 'You Need To Calm Down'. 

Watch her performance at the MTV VMAs 2019 here: