Taylor Swift has made history after winning the award for best direction at the MTV Video Music Awards.
The singer picked up the win for directing her gender-flipping video The Man – in which she plays a bloke called Tyler Swift – on Sunday night, making her the first female solo artist to get the award.
She saw off competition from Billie Eilish’s video for Xanny, Doja Cat’s Say So, Don’t Start Now by Dua Lipa, Adore You by Harry Styles, and Blinding Lights by The Weeknd. As the MTV VMAs were socially distanced this year, Taylor gave her acceptance speech in a video sent from home.
Thanking her team for their support, Taylor said: ‘Guys, this is amazing. This is the first video I’ve ever directed on my own and I just – I’m so grateful for this.
I want to take an opportunity to say thank you for the team who believed in me as a first-time director and made this video with me. ‘My DP, my AD, my editor, Ethan, Joe, Bill and his team for turning me into a guy, which was very thrilling.
I also want to thank two women that I’d worked with convinced me that I was up to the challenge of directing on my own and those women were my producers on this video, Rebecca Skinner and Jil Hardin. Thank you for that.’
‘I was told this was an industry voted award so I want to say thank you to everyone in the industry who voted for this video. I also really want to thank the fans because you are the only reason the industry cares about anything that I do and everything that you have done this summer.’ She added: ‘I’m so blown away and taken aback by your generosity to me.
Thank you for everything. I hope I get to see you soon.’ This summer Taylor dropped her eighth studio album Folklore in a surprise release.
Other winners at the MTV VMAs included The Weeknd, Doja Cat, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga and BTS – who performed their new single Dynamite for the first time.
