The MTV Video Music Awards were held at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Sunday. Nicki Minaj won the Video Vanguard Award at the event. 

The award is also known as the Lifetime Achievement Award. It is a merit given to the recording artists and music video directors at the MTV VMA. The trophy is a gold-plated moonman. 

MTV has honoured Madonna, Kanye West, Britney Spears and more artists with the Video Vanguard Award at the Video Music Awards. The Beatles and director Richard Lester were honoured with the Video Vanguard Award at the inaugural VMAs. David Bowie won the top honour at the same ceremony in 1984. 

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The award was renamed to honour Michael Jackson in 1988. Jackson was presented with the Moon Person in 1988. Madonna became the first female to have won the award in 1991. 

It was presented as the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2003 VMAs to Duran Duran. In 2006, it was presented as the Video Vanguard Award to director Hype Williams. The award returned with Michael Jackson’s name, following his death. 

According to MTV, his name was attached to the award because of “Jackson’s groundbreaking work as a video artist”. The naming caused controversy after the release of Leaving Neverland, a documentary about alleged child sexual abuse by Jackson. 

Missy Elliot, at the 36th annual VMAs, made history by becoming the first female rap artist to accept the Vanguard Award. Jennifer Lopez became the first Latin artist to win this award in 2018. 

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Jennifer Lopez mentioned during her acceptance speech, “I grew up on MTV. This is really like, a tremendous honour for me. It has been an incredible journey of dreaming my wildest dreams, and then kind of watching them come true.”

The Video Vanguard Award has been awarded to 34 acts, with most of them being of American or British origin.