Who Could Be the Video Vanguard Recipient at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards? Our Nine Best Guesses

For as much as Taylor Swift clearly still loves the VMAs — attending them, presenting at them, making surprise announcements at them and certainly accepting awards at them — it’s been a while since she’s actually performed at them. Or at any other award show, for that matter: Since doing a Folklore medley at the 2021 Grammys, she’s mostly kept her performances to her own Eras Tour and a few intimate live engagements. That half-decade hiatus from performing at award shows certainly makes her a long shot for this year’s Video Vanguard — not to mention that she may already have her eyes set on next year’s Oscars as the site for her return to the awards-show stage, as she is likely to be in best song contention with her “I Knew It, I Knew You” from Toy Story 5.

But the timing of this year’s awards — and Swift’s continued affection for the ceremonies that inspired many of her career’s most iconic moments, for better and/or worse — makes a Taylor Swift Video Vanguard performance too tempting to leave off our predictions entirely. After all, Sept. 27 is just a few weeks before the 20th anniversary of Swift’s self-titled debut album — which, if you believe the fan theories, could be receiving its own Taylor’s Version release around then. What better way to promote (or even to reveal) that reissue than with a full-circle VMAs moment?

Again, a long shot. But you can bet it’s one the Swifties in your life have already spent weeks trying to talk themselves into being a real possibility — and not totally without reason.

Olivia Rodrigo, already? OK, probably not: Giving a 23-year-old — with only three albums and probably not even a dozen total videos under her belt — a lifetime achievement award would likely strain credibility a tad. Then again, Olivia Rodrigo is hardly just any 23-year-old: She’s one with three Billboard 200-topping universally celebrated albums already to her credit, each with at least one Billboard Hot 100-besting single on it, and a number of widely beloved music videos with a defined and influential aesthetic between them. And of course, this year has probably been Rodrigo’s biggest yet, with a nearly 500,000-unit-moving first week for critically adored third album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, three long-lasting hits in “Drop Dead,” “The Cure” and “Stupid Song” and now even her own music festival.

Is that all enough to make her a likely Video Vanguard recipient in 2026? Not too likely, but not impossible — particularly if giving her their most prestigious award would end up being the one thing that convinced her to take the stage at this year’s awards. Certainly, a full crowd singing along to “Drivers License” and “Good 4 U” is not going to care too much about Olivia Rodrigo not satisfying some imaginary eligibility waiting period first. (And while Rodrigo would be the youngest-ever winner of the award, it wouldn’t be by much: Janet Jackson won it in 1990 at the age of 24.)

Bruno feels a pretty ideal fit for the Video Vanguard, having been a massive hitmaker for over 15 years — as well as a consummate performer and entertainer — while remaining as big as ever in 2026. (He’s a four-time winner at the VMAs this decade alone, including just two last year: best collaboration (for “Die With a Smile” with Lady Gaga) and best song (for “APT.” with Rosé).) He also might be thinking Grammy campaign for his latest full length The Romantic. Why this low, then? Well, he’s got a tour date on Sept. 27 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado — which means if he’s gonna do a Video Vanguard performance and/or award acceptance, it’ll have to be pre-filmed and/or remote, and the VMAs usually like to keep that one live in the building. But Bruno would be a big-enough get for this that it wouldn’t be shocking to see MTV make an exception for him.

It feels like Ed Sheeran will end up doing this one of these years — he’s got 15 years of hits, some very popular music videos (and a pair of VMA wins, including artist of the year in 2017), and both a catalog and performance style that would lend itself to a memorable Video Vanguard showing. Unclear if there’s any particular reason why 2026 would be the year, since his latest album (2025’s Play) is now a year in the rearview and there’s nothing new immediately on the horizon — but he is in the midst of his latest global trek (The Loop Tour), and he will already be in the northeast on Sept. 27, following the second of his two dates at Boston’s Gillette Stadium on the 26th.

Charli is at once both a neat and an oblong fit for the Video Vanguard — she’s been a pop star for a decade and a half, with plenty of unforgettable videos over that timespan, and a total commitment to performance that would make her a natural for the VMAs stage. And yet: Outside of the 2014 pre-show, she’s never performed at the VMAs in her career, having spent only brief spells at the level of top 40 hitmaker traditionally invited to the show. (She’s also only won once at the awards — with “Guess” taking the video for good award in 2025 — and went nearly a decade in between nominations, from 2014 to 2022).

The motivation could still very well be there on both sides to make a Charli xcx Video Vanguard win and performance happen — and with Charli kicking off her much-anticipated Music, Fashion, Film Tour next week, the timing might be right as well. It would just require some collective ignoring of the dissonance of MTV treating Charli like a legacy performer at the awards, when she has only a fairly minor VMAs legacy to speak of.

But wait… didn’t Madonna win this award already? Sure did: 40 years ago exactly, in fact, at the third-ever VMAs in 1986. But given what an incredible late-career success her 2026 album Confessions II has ended up being — leading to her 11 nominations at this year’s awards — and given that in the past four decades, Madonna has achieved enough to merit this award several times over, we wonder if MTV isn’t trying to figure out a way to give her the honor a second time. Naming her the Video Vanguard GOAT, perhaps? Giving her co-billing on the award’s name alongside Michael Jackson? We can’t guess exactly, but some honor doubling down on her ’86 Vanguard win would be plenty fitting for arguably the artist who’s meant the most to the VMAs in the show’s 43-year history.

On the one hand, it’d be a little strange to give Video Vanguard to an artist who technically has even fewer official studio albums than Olivia Rodrigo. But despite the relatively scant studio output, Cardi B has been a top-flight hitmaker for nearly a whole decade now, with multiple iconic videos to her credit and a nomination at the 2026 awards (in best hip-hop, for “Safe” with Kehlani). That album was a year ago, and Cardi’s off tour at the moment, but it still feels like an award that would make sense on both sides — giving MTV its first hip-hop Video Vanguard winner since Nicki Minaj in 2022 with another top-flight star performer, and allowing Cardi a nice spotlight moment going into a potential 2027 Grammys campaign.

BTS recently wrapped the North American leg of its Arirang World Tour — but could the Bangtan Boys stick around for one more performance before heading abroad? It certainly feels like it could be the right moment for a victory lap, with the group reunited this year for a triumphant comeback album and tour and putting up some of the best numbers of its career in the process. BTS is up for two awards at this year’s VMAs — song of the year and best K-pop, both for the Hot 100-topping “Swim” — so the septet might already be in the building anyway, and the crowd would undoubtedly get near-unprecedently hype for a BTS Video Vanguard medley that took them all the way from “I Need U” to “Normal.” (Not to mention that the group might be skipping the Grammys this year, after declining to submit their music for consideration this year.) Besides, there’s never been a K-pop winner of the award before, and BTS would be a fitting first for any number of reasons.

Well, we called Miley Cyrus for this last year too, and that ended up being wrong. But this year it feels just as likely, if not more so — like Taylor Swift, Cyrus has also been in something of a reflective mood this year, with the 20th anniversary of Hannah Montana giving her extra reason for such looking-back. And unlike Swift, she actually now already has a new release on the calendar: Bass Persuades, due for a release on Sept. 16, a week and a half before the VMAs. Miley’s an icon of pop music, pop culture and the VMAs specifically; she’s gonna get this award one of these years, and this year would make a lot of sense to finally be the one.