If there’s anyone who knows about a showstopping kiss on the MTV VMAs stage, it’s Britney Spears — and she had some thoughts on Sabrina Carpenter‘s own viral VMA lip-lock with an alien at Wednesday night’s show.
Spears posted a selfie video to her Instagram account, where she brought up a few Carpenter moments from the awards show.
“Did you guys watch the VMAs?” she asked her 42 million followers. “I didn’t watch the VMAs, but I did see stuff on my phone from YouTube of Sabrina Carpenter. Why is she kissing an alien onstage? I adore her. I love her to death. I didn’t understand that part. Why didn’t she kiss a girl? Like, that was weird. But I also thought that, like, the whole thing was kind of, like, weird.”
The pop star then went on a tangent about taking a “really long bath” on VMA night and doing some coloring — “I’m into coloring right now. I like to color and I like to trace.” — before circling back to Carpenter.
“This Sabrina girl, she said my name on the red carpet and I thought that was kind of cool,” Spears said. “Because I forget I’m famous sometimes. Because I’m a mom, I’m kind of old, blah-blah-blah, but that was kind of cool. … She made me cool. OK, maybe not,” she laughed.
Spears has had a lot of memorable moments on the VMA stage over the years, including her notorious kiss with Madonna at the 2003 show, when Brit and sometime rival Christina Aguilera joined the Queen of Pop onstage to perform “Like a Virgin” and share a three-way kiss.
Britney’s presence was felt throughout Wednesday’s show, like when host Megan Thee Stallion wore a re-creation of Spears’ 2001 “I’m a Slave 4 U” performance costume — complete with a yellow snake wrapped around her arms — or when Tate McRae paid tribute to the sheer, lacy Dolce & Gabbana minidress Spears wore on the red carpet that same year.
Carpenter herself even had an onstage reference to Spears, when she played an audio snippet from Britney’s “Oops!…I Did It Again” music video during the transition between “Please Please Please” and new single “Taste” for her debut VMA performance.
Watch Spears’ reaction to the 2024 VMAs below: