VMAs VIPs: These 10 Artists Have Won Both Video of the Year and the Video Vanguard Award

Today’s announcement that Katy Perry will receive the Video Vanguard Award at the 2024 Video Music Awards on Wednesday, Sept. 11 puts her in rarified company. Perry is only the 10th performer to receive both of the VMAs’ highest-profile awards – the Vanguard Award and video of the year. She won the latter award in 2011 for “Firework.”

Of the 10 double honorees, seven are women, two are men and just one is a group. Three are Black. One is British. One is from Barbados.

In addition, Perry hosted the VMAs in 2017. None of the other people who have won both of the VMAs’ top laurels has ever hosted the show.

MTV has presented both these awards since the very first show on Sept. 14, 1984 – though they didn’t have a Video Vanguard honoree in 13 years and had multiple Video Vanguard honorees in seven years.

The first winner of video of the year, in an upset, was The Cars’ “You Might Think.” (Most had expected Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to win.) The first winners of the Video Vanguard award were The Beatles and director Richard Lester, who had pioneered the form on a pair of 1960s films (A Hard Day’s Night and Help!), and David Bowie, who also performed on that first show. He sang “Blue Jean,” which went on to hit the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, in a pre-taped segment from London.

Here are the 10 performers in VMAs history who have received both the MTV Video Vanguard Award and video of the year.