As well as taking home eight of the 10 awards she was nominated for on the night (she only missed out on Best Collaboration and Best Art Direction, with the latter going to the late David Bowie for his stunning ‘Lazarus’ video), she also got up to perform during the ceremony.
And when we say “perform”, we don’t mean a verse and a chorus, followed by a bit of shimmying and toe-tapping. We mean a 16-minute medley of tracks from her smash album ‘Lemonade’.
Throughout the performance, Beyoncé took us on an emotional journey, opening with an emotional rendition of ‘Pray You Catch Me’ before channelling her anger in ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’ and closing with a stunning and energetic version of her hit, ‘Formation’.
Our favourite part, though, was ‘Hold Up’, when she recreated the video by grabbing a baseball bat and knocking one of the VMAs cameras to the floor with it (all while a sample taken from Kanye West’s ‘Famous’, a track she beat in the Video Of The Year category, played).
All this was interspersed with dialogue taken from the ‘Lemonade’ visual album, which deals with themes of infidelity and empowerment.
Other performers on the night included Britney Spears, who made a triumphant return to the VMAs stage after nearly a decade, and Rihanna, who won the Video Vanguard Award and celebrated by performing short medleys of her hits throughout the ceremony.
