2018 MTV Video Music Awards

For the 2018 European MTV Music Awards click here.

Kiyoko holding her Push Artist of the Year award

The 2018 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) was held on August 20, 2018 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The 35th annual award show aired live from the venue for the 12th time, the most of any previous venue in its history. American rapper Cardi B led the list of nominations with twelve mentions and opened the show. She and Childish Gambino were the most awarded of the night with three each.

Hayley Kiyoko was nominated for "Best New Artist" and "Push Artist of the Year" which also marked her first ever VMA nomination. She ended up winning the "Push Artist of the Year" award however, lost to Cardi B for "Best New Artist".

The show had seen yet another severe drop in the ratings only achieving a mere 2.2 million viewers on MTV, and only seeing 4.87 million viewers on all of its sister networks.

Performances

Hayley Kiyoko Performs 'Curious' (Live Performance) 2018 MTV Video Music Awards

Note: Only performances that involve Kiyoko are listed.

Main Show

• Hayley Kiyoko - Curious

Winners and nominees

Note: Only categories which Kiyoko won or was nominated for are listed.

Best New Artist

Winner: Cardi B
Nominees:

• Hayley Kiyoko (placed second)
• Bazzi
• Chloe x Halle
• Lil Pump
• Lil Uzi Vert

Push Artist of the Year

Winner: Hayley Kiyoko
Nominees:

• Bishop Briggs
• Chloe x Halle
• Noah Cyrus
• Tee Grizzley
• Kacy Hill
• Khalid
• Kyle
• Lil Xan
• PrettyMuch
• Jessie Reyez
• Sigrid
• SZA
• Grace VanderWaal
• Why Don't We

Critical reception

Entertainment Weekly's writer Darren Franich gave the show a B– and said, "MTV's tagline for the 2018 Video Music Awards was 'Everything might happen.' Hey, they said might. The 35th VMAs had some fiery performances, but the show never quite sparked [...] This was a reasonably satisfying awards show, not the boring trainwreck some VMAs have been, not the exciting trainwreck supernova some VMAs dare to be." For Variety, Daniel D'addario said, "There was a time when the VMAs were a change-of-season status report on pop: As MTV’s target audience heads back to school and those slightly outside that audience get ready to turn their mind to graver things, the pop world had historically united to put on a show that could carry viewers into the fall." and unfavorable compared it to the 2013 show line up. In Billboard, Leila Cobo wrote, "although this year's awards haven't escaped criticism, it hasn't been for lack of Latin power," noting that "Maluma, Cardi B, Jennifer Lopez and Camila Cabello (finally) put Latin music center stage at VMAs."