AMAs 2022: Taylor Swift makes SURPRISE appearance to accept six awards

Taylor Swift made a surprise appearance at the 2022 American Music Awards in LA on Sunday to accept a milestone six awards – amid her tour ticket fiasco with Ticketmaster.

Taylor, who last week revealed she was ‘p****d off’ following Ticketmaster’s botched handling of sales for her The Eras Tour, looked radiant in a glittering gold backless jumpsuit as she completed a clean sweep of the awards show – winning all six categories she was nominated in. 

Accepting her first gong for Favorite Pop Album for  Red (Taylor’s Version), the star, 32, was visibly emotional as she reflected on the win for the 2021 release – which was one of six albums she re-recorded after Scooter Braun purchased her entire music catalog out from underneath her and then sold it without her knowledge for $300million to Shamrock Holdings. 

The Anti-Hero singer, who earlier skipped the red carpet, said: ‘Wow. This album is a re-recorded album, and I cannot tell you how much my rerecorded albums mean to me, but I never expected or assumed that they would mean anything to you. 

‘So I can’t thank you enough for caring about this album that I’m so proud of. I have some people who made this happen who I really want to thank.    

She added: ‘Chris Row who co-produced this album with me, hours and hours and hours in the studio recreating Red, an album I love so much. I want to thank all the artists who featured on the vault tracks, 

‘Chris Stapleton, Phoebe Bridgers. I want to thank my live touring band who played on this album, and I want to take a moment — there was a music video that I did that I was very happy about, so I want to say thank you to Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien, and my brilliant director Blake Lively, and Mike Teller and Kelly Teller for being in the music video. 

‘I want to thank you guys for making this a possibility for To the fans, I cannot thank you enough. This is so special. Thank you.’

Taylor also won the awards for Favorite Country Album for Red (Taylor’s Version), Favorite Music Video for All Too Well: The Short Film, Artist of the Year, Favorite Pop Female Artist and Favorite Country Female Artist.  This means she has won a total of 40 AMA gongs in her career.

The Bejeweled hitmaker showed of a hint of her cleavage in the Hollywood glamor number, with her tresses styled in soft waves.

Back in 2019, Taylor called Scooter out over the sale in a social media post and claimed that he intentionally kept her in the dark while he turned a hefty profit on her hard work. 

Prior to that, in 2019 Braun had purchased Nashville-based independent record label Big Machine, first taking the rights to Taylor’s body of work and at the time, she voiced public outrage at being cut out of the deal.

Swift said the news made her ‘sad and grossed out’ because, in part, she claims Braun perpetuated ‘incessant, manipulative bullying’ against her for years.

She also released Fearless (Taylor’s Version in April 2021. Red was originally released in 2012 and Fearless in 2009.

In September 2022, entertainment executive Braun responded to the controversy, telling Wendy Williams, ‘I learned an important lesson’ from the purchase. 

He appeared to be referring to Big Machine owner Scott Borchetta, 60, when he claimed, ‘When I did that deal, I was under a very strict NDA with the gentleman who owned it, and I couldn’t tell any artist.’ 

Braun also indicated in the interview he wasn’t as realistic as he should have been when signing on the dotted line.

‘I was excited to work with every artist on the label. So when we finalized the deal, I started making phone calls to say, hey, I’m a part of this. And before I could even do that – I made four phone calls; I started to do those phone calls – all hell broke loose.’

‘So the regret I have there,’ he continued, ‘is that I made the assumption that everyone, once the deal was done, was going to have a conversation with me, see my intent, see my character and say, great, let’s be in business together. And I made that assumption with people that I didn’t know.’ 

 The New York native claimed he learned an important lesson from the controversy. ‘I can never make that assumption again. I can’t put myself in a place of, you know, arrogance to think that someone would just be willing to have a conversation and be excited to work with me.’   

She released All Too Well and its accompanying 10-minute short film towards the end of 2021 and sparked rumors that the ‘red scarf’ she sings about was still in the possession of ex-boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal, 41.

However, she has now admitted that the garment was simply a storytelling device, with the color chosen after its parent album’s title. 

The ‘Shake It Off’ hitmaker alleges in the lyrics that she left a scarf at the house of a sister to a man she was dating and fans believe that she is alluding to the ‘Brokeback Mountain’ actor – whom she dated from October 2010 until January 2011 – and his sister Maggie.  

All Too Well originally debuted in a five-minute version on her hit 2012 album Red, but Taylor had originally written a 10-minute draft of the song with her cowriter Liz Rose, who helped her edit it down for the album.

After Taylor set about rerecording her catalogue, she finally recorded the original 10-minute version of All Too Well and included it as a bonus track on the album.

To accompany the new song, she created the nearly 15-minute short film to serve as its music video.

The film was deemed eligible for Oscar consideration in the best live action short film category, The Hollywood Reporter revealed last month.

The film appears to act out a version of Taylor’s relationship with Jake, with Sadie Sink, 20, playing the Taylor stand-in — referred to only as Her — while Dylan O’Brien plays a version of Jake, known as Him.

Taylor is also featured toward the end of the short as an older version of Sadie’s character, and she sports red hair to match.

In addition to making her directorial debut, Taylor also wrote and produced the short film.   

Accepting the award Taylor said: ‘Alright! This short film was ten years in the making, and the only reason I got to write and direct the film is because you the fans chose the song all too well. You chose it. No one at a record label chose it. You picked it. You said that is the song that matters to us, and it was just so happens that it was the song that matters the most to me. 

‘I’m very happy we all agreed on that. So the people who helped me make this, I really want to ssay this forever, Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien, thank you so much for trusting me as a director with your immense talent… I’m so proud of it. I’m so happy you like it too. This is so special and wonderful and — ahh, thank you. Thank you for this.’

Picking up the Artist of the Year award and and triumphing over fellow nominees Adele, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Drake, ex Harry Styles and The Weeknd, Taylor said: ‘You know, in the past few years, I have released more music than I did in the entire decade preceding that, and I really feel like that’s down to the fact that you, the fans, made it clear that you wanted to hear lots of music that I would make. 

‘You encouraged me. And so, I found that the more music I made and the more music I put out, the happier I was. The more I just kept that channel open and just kept creating, kept making things, and the more that happened, the more you guys were like, yeah, keep doing it. 

And the happier I was, so I have the fans to thank, essentially, for my happiness and — [ cheers and applause ] — And I love you more than I can say. I cannot express how unbelievable it is to me that I still get to do this and that you still care, so thank you underlined with 13 exclamation points. I don’t know what to say. I love you.’

This comes as Ticketmaster blamed a ‘staggering number of bot attacks’ for causing a tidal wave of problems for Taylor fans seeking to purchase tickets for her Eras Tour.

On November 1, Swift announced a 27-date tour across 20 U.S. cities, running from March to August next year – sparking fan chaos.

Tickets went on sale on Tuesday, but what Ticketmaster termed a ‘historically unprecedented demand’ from millions of fans saw the site crash repeatedly and the process descend into a fiasco, with her supporters furious at the soaring prices and spending hours waiting in line.

Taylor blasted Ticketmaster for the mayhem surrounding her recent ticket sale, claiming that she was ‘assured’ the company could handle the high demand ‘multiple times’ and calling it ‘excruciating’ to ‘watch mistakes happen with no recourse.’ 

Ticketmaster has cancelled the scheduled public sale of tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour on Friday, citing ‘high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory.’

In a tweet, Ticketmaster said ‘Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.’

Now, Taylor has spoken out about the situation in a statement posted to her Instagram Stories, and she said she is just as ‘pissed off’ as everyone else is.

‘It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans,’ she began in the lengthy post. 

‘We’ve been doing this for decades together and over the years, I’ve brought so many elements of my career in house.’

Taylor went on to explain – without mentioning the company by name – that she chose to use Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan system because she thought it would ‘improve the quality of her fans’ experience,’ despite it being ‘really difficult’ for her to ‘trust an outside entity.’

‘I’ve done this SPECIFICALLY to improve the quality of my fans’ experience by doing it myself with my team, who care as much about my fans as I do,’ she continued. 

‘It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.’ 

The Cardigan songstress added that there were ‘multiple reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets’ and that she’s currently ‘trying to figure out how the situation can be improved moving forward.’

‘I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could,’ she said. 

‘It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them.’

She concluded her message with a note to those who weren’t able to get their hands on a ticket, writing, ‘All I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us all to get together and sing these songs.

‘Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means.’   

Now, after Tennessee’s attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti revealed he was launching an investigation into Ticketmaster, the site has issued a lengthy response blaming bots and fans without invite codes for causing ‘unprecedented traffic’ of 3.5billion users – four times the normal amount.

A statement read: ‘The Eras on sale made one thing clear: Taylor Swift is an unstoppable force and continues to set records. We strive to make ticket buying as easy as possible for fans, but that hasn’t been the case for many people trying to buy tickets for the Eras Tour. We want to share some information to help explain what happened.

Ticketmaster explained that fans needed to register with their system Verified Fan before the sale began, which is designed to ‘help manage high demand shows – identifying real humans and weeding out bots.’   

The statement continued: ‘Based on fan interest at registration we knew this would be big. Over 3.5 million people pre-registered for Taylor’s Verified Fan, which is the largest registration in history.  

‘The huge demand for Taylor’s tour informed the artist team’s decision to add additional dates – doubling the tour and number of tickets available so more fans could make it to shows.

‘Historically, around 40% of invited fans actually show up and buy tickets, and most purchase an average of 3 tickets. So working with the artist team, around 1.5 million people were invited to participate in the on sale for all 52 show dates, including the 47 sold by Ticketmaster.

‘The remaining 2 million Verified Fans were put on the waiting list.’

Adding the demand for Taylor ‘broke records and parts of our website’, the statement continued: ‘Historically, working with Verified Fan invite codes has worked as we’ve been able to manage the volume coming into the site to shop for tickets. 

‘However, this time the staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes drove unprecedented traffic on our site, resulting in 3.5 billion total system requests – 4x our previous peak.

‘Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention – or uninvited volume. This disrupted the predictability and reliability that is the hallmark of our Verified Fan platform.  

‘It usually takes us about an hour to sell through a stadium show, but we slowed down some sales and pushed back others to stabilize the systems. The trade off was longer wait times in queue for some fans.

‘Overall, we estimate about 15% of interactions across the site experienced issues, and that’s 15% too many, including passcode validation errors that caused fans to lose tickets they had carted.’

They added: ‘The biggest venues and artists turn to us because we have the leading ticketing technology in the world – that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, and clearly for Taylor’s on sale it wasn’t. But we’re always working to improve the ticket buying experience. Especially for high demand on sales, which continue to test new limits.

‘Even when a high demand on sale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty handed. For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)…that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years.

‘While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve the experience and that’s what we’re focused on.’

The Eras Tour would sell a staggering and record-breaking 2 million tickets in just one day. 

The situation also launched an investigation into Ticketmaster from the the Justice Department, according to the New York Times.

‘The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into the owner of Ticketmaster, whose sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets descended into chaos this week, said two people with knowledge of the matter,’ the outlet reported.

‘The investigation is focused on whether Live Nation Entertainment has abused its power over the multibillion-dollar live music industry.’                   

Dove Cameron won the honors for best new artist of the year at the 2022 American Music Awards.

Cameron, 26, defeated fellow nominees GAYLE, Latto, Måneskin and Steve Lacy for the honor.

The Disney Channel alum thanked ‘the queer community at large’ in accepting the award. 

‘This is so meaningful to me,’ she said. ‘I want to start by saying that every award that I ever win will always first and foremost be dedicated to the queer community at large.’

She said, ‘I’ve never felt safer or more loved and more supported, and I hope I can give you some semblance of that same feeling in my music.’

She continued: ‘On the heels of what happened at Club Q in Colorado Springs, I want to remind everyone how important queer visibility is and how important our community is. 

‘And I want to direct your attention to organizations like GLAAD and The Trevor Project for what you can do right now … thank you for holding the space – I’m holding it for you too.’  

Machine Gun Kelly took home the honors for favorite rock artist. He bested a field including Imagine Dragons, Måneskin, Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Lumineers.

MGK, 32, whose real name is Colson Baker, thanked the fans for voting him into the honors.

The tall musician joked, ‘I’m petitioning for larger mic stands next time.’

He said that ‘there have been some people in the rock community who have called me a tourist, but they’re wrong – I’m a rocket man.

He continued: ‘We weren’t born on the moon, but we looked at it and we were curious, and we went there supposedly. And these last two rock albums to me were me going to the moon. But I’m not done exploring the universe yet.’ 

Dan + Shay took home the award for favorite country duo or group, besting a field including Lady A, Old Dominion, Parmalee and Zac Brown Band. 

Chris Brown, who was not in attendance at Sunday’s event, won the honors for favorite male R&B artist, defeating a field including Brent Faiyaz, Givēon, Lucky Daye and The Weeknd.

Presenter Kelly Rowland accepted the honors for Brown, thanking the artist for making great R&B music and being an incredible performer. 

Anitta won favorite female Latin artist, prevailing in a category including Becky G, Kali Uchis, Karol G and Rosalía.

The 29-year-old singer, who hails from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, thanked her fans in her acceptance speech.

‘You guys are amazing,’ she said. ‘Without this, without you guys and my whole country of Brazil, I wouldn’t be here today.’

She also credited other nominees such as Becky G and Rosalía, adding that ‘there are no winners if there are no other people running this path with us.’  

Wizkid, who was not present, was the winner in the category of favorite Afrobeats artist, besting fellow nominees. The 32-year-old artist won in a category that also included Burna Boy, CKay, Fireboy DML, and Tems.

Måneskin won the favorite rock song award for their song Beggin’. They were nominated against Foo Fighters (Love Dies Young); Imagine Dragons x JID (Enemy); Kate Bush (Running Up That Hill A Deal With God) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (Black Summer).   

In the category for favorite hip-hop song, presenter Liza Koshy accepted the honors on behalf of the winner Future featuring Drake & Tems for Wait For U.

Other nominees included Jack Harlow (First Class), Kodak Black (Super Gremlin), Latto (Big Energy) and Lil Nas X featuring Harlow (Industry Baby).

The Harry Styles hit As It Was claimed the honors for favorite pop song, winning in a category that also included Adele (Easy on Me); Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz & Encanto Cast (We Don’t Talk About Bruno); Lizzo (About Damn Time); and The Kid LAROI & Justin Bieber (Stay).

Presenter Kim Petras accepted the honors on behalf of the superstar singer, who was not at the show on Sunday.

Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny landed the most nominations at this year’s American Music Awards with eight, taking home two awards for Favorite Male Latin Artist and Favorite Male Latin Album for Un Verano Sin Ti.  

The nominations are based on performances on the Billboard music charts, streaming and album sales, radio play and social media engagement. 

Winners  were determined by fan votes and announced at the ceremony at Microsoft Theater at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles.

Lionel Richie was honored at the ceremony as he received the Icon Award.

Stevie Wonder led the performance for his contemporary, while Charlie Puth and Ari Lennox joined the keyboard virtuoso for a medley of Richie’s most popular material.

The 2021 ceremony saw K-Pop icons BTS earn the most wins with three including top honor artist of the year as the most nominated singer Olivia Rodrigo earned new artist of the year.

The seven member South Korean pop boyband – who also earned favorite pop group or duo and favorite pop song  – was given the most coveted crystal pyramid trophy of the night as they beat out heavy hitters including Ariana Grande, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, and The Weeknd.

Source: | Dailymail.co.uk