It’s the summer of Taylor Swift, as the superstar has kept up a steady stream of re-recorded albums and taken over cities across the continent on her record-smashing Eras Tour. And on Tuesday night, at the MTV Video Music Awards, Swift once again proved she’s nowhere close to relinquishing her current chokehold on pop culture.
The Midnights singer took home a whopping nine awards, and she didn’t even have to perform onstage to steal the show—her antics as an exuberant spectator dominated the internet.
Of course, Swift has long had a, ahem, reputation for partying at the Grammys, the BRITs, and every other such industry event—so much so that there’s a 17-minute-long YouTube compilation dedicated to her viral-friendly awards show behavior.
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But even for Swift, she was on one at last night’s VMAs. In between her speeches for Best Music Video, Artist of the Year, Best Pop, and Song of the Year, the singer was demonstrably content to celebrate others, most notably her BFF Selena Gomez and the reunited NSYNC, who Swift was overjoyed to see on stage.
Put another way, as the show went on, the internet became deluged with memes and videos of Swift downing drinks, dancing, singing, and palling around with other musicians to her heart’s content.
She rapped along to Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” as the hip-hop legend performed onstage. She shimmied in her seat to Shakira. “It’s giving MOVIE! It's giving CINEMATOGRPAHY!” she yelled to one of her friends after Doja Cat’s performance.
As the night wore on and Swift seemingly got more tipsy, with a drink clutched in her right hand, she rocked along to Demi Lovato’s “Cool for the Summer,” as though she were vamping alone in her bedroom.
The drink-in-hand was an omnipresent motif: In another clip, Swift hilariously struggled to dislodge her beverage from its cupholder. She shimmied in her Versace dress like a new mom taking her first vacation away from the kids.
The pièce de résistance? The face Swift pulled when she brandished her $12,000 Van Cleef & Arpels ring...which she’d apparently broken.
Long live Drunk Taylor. See more of her best moments and memes from last night below.
