New Delhi: Taylor Swift is set to receive the first-ever Artist Director Honors at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, recognising her work as a singer and artist directing her own music videos.
The award will also take Swift past Beyoncé as the most-awarded artist in VMA history. The two currently have 30 awards each. With this award, Swift’s total will rise to 31. Swift and Beyoncé have shared the all-time VMA record since 2024, when Swift won seven awards in one night and brought her total to 30.
The Artist Director Honors is a new award for musicians whose work behind the camera has pushed music videos as a form.
MTV said that the honour is for artists “whose directorial work has advanced the art of music video and storytelling”.
The award may be new, but Swift’s director era is not. Her solo directorial debut was ‘The Man’ in 2020 for her album Lover. Speaking about directing the video, she later said it was “more fulfilling than I ever could have imagined.”
After that came All Too Well: The Short Film in 2021, which she also wrote. The short film, starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien as well as Swift, was the dramatised version of her song ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault),’ as part of her re-recorded album Red (Taylor’s Version). She has since directed videos including ‘cardigan’ (2020), ‘willow’ (2020), ‘Anti-Hero’ (2022), ‘Bejeweled’ (2022) and ‘Fortnight’ (2024).
“I have always written stories, poetry, and songs. And I think this just grew out of that storytelling,” Swift said in 2022, while speaking about how she came to directing.
Her more recent directing credits include ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ (2025) and Opalite (2025), from her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl.
Best Direction is one category Swift knows all too well: she has won it four of the seven times she has been nominated.
Swift also has nine competitive nominations at this year’s VMAs, behind only Madonna, who has 11. ‘The Fate of Ophelia’ is nominated for Video of the Year and several technical awards, while ‘Opalite’ is nominated for Best Direction.
The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards will be held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on 27 September, with Snoop Dogg as the host.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)