Madonna Makes Triumphant VMAs Return After 23 Years With Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX & Star-Studded Cameos

The Queen of Pop came home, and she brought the whole party with her.

Madonna opened the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night (September 27) in Los Angeles, and it wasn’t some polite, tasteful cameo. This was a full-throttle, costume-change, guest-list-to-die-for opening number — the kind of thing only she could pull off. At 68, she stormed the stage she hasn’t properly performed on in 23 years and, honestly? She owned the entire night before the first award was even handed out.

MTV had been teasing “special guests” for weeks, and the speculation machine went absolutely wild. Would she do a medley? A tribute to herself? (She’s earned it.) Would it be the long-rumored biopic tie-in? As it turned out, the real answer was better than any rumor: a spectacle built around her Confessions II era that doubled as a family reunion of the coolest people in pop culture right now.

Twenty-three years in the making

Let’s put this in perspective, because the number matters. Madonna’s last VMA performance was in 2003 — the infamous “wedding” moment with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera that broke the internet before breaking the internet was really a thing. That was twenty-three years ago. Some of the artists she shared the stage with on Sunday night weren’t even born yet.

Her history with this show is basically the history of the show itself. In 1984, when the VMAs were just a baby awards ceremony trying to seem cool, Madonna rolled around on the floor in a wedding dress performing “Like a Virgin” and made it must-see TV forever. In 1990, her “Vogue” performance set the standard for choreographed pop spectacle that everyone is still chasing. She’s been the bride, the queen, the provocateur, and now — the returning legend.

There’s something quietly moving about watching her walk that stage again. This is a woman who nearly died in 2023 after a serious bacterial infection landed her in the ICU. She canceled the start of her Celebration Tour, then came back and tore through it anyway. So when she hit the VMA stage at 68, outdancing people half her age, it didn’t read as nostalgia. It read as a statement: she’s still here, she’s still the standard, and everybody else is just visiting.

Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX get the biggest moments

Of all the cameos, two had real musical meat on the bone. Sabrina Carpenter — pop’s current golden girl and the woman behind one of the biggest tours on the planet — joined Madonna for a live performance of “Bring Your Love,” their collaboration from Madonna’s Confessions II album. The song was up for Best Collaboration at this year’s VMAs, so the timing was impeccable. Seeing them together was one of those generational baton-passing moments that actually felt earned rather than manufactured.

Sabrina has been vocal about Madonna being one of her idols, and you could see it in how she carried herself — that mix of total confidence and genuine reverence. Their voices, which shouldn’t obviously work together on paper, genuinely did. Pop-punk sass meets disco-club diva. It slapped.

Then came Charli XCX, who joined Madonna for “Danceteria Afterhours.” If you’ve been paying attention to pop music for the last few years, this pairing makes perfect sense. Charli has been Madonna’s loudest champion among the younger generation, and Madonna has returned the favor by championing Charli’s weirder instincts. The Brat summer energy meeting the Confessions on a Dance Floor legacy? It was the collision of two club eras, and the crowd went feral for it.

Honestly, putting Sabrina and Charli in the two biggest musical slots was smart producing. Madonna could have just surrounded herself with backup dancers and called it a day. Instead, she shared her comeback moment with the two women currently defining pop’s center — and in doing so, reminded everyone that she defined it first.

A parade of familiar faces

But the real fun of the opener was the sheer density of cameos packed into the sequence. This thing was stuffed like a celebrity stocking.

Julia Garner appeared — and for Madonna watchers, that one landed with a wink. Garner has been attached for ages to play Madonna in the superstar’s long-planned biopic, the one Madonna herself is directing and has been developing (and redeveloping, and redeveloping) for years. Every time Julia shows up next to Madonna in public, the internet takes it as a sign the movie is finally happening. Whether it is or not, the two of them on screen together felt like a little Easter egg for the faithful.

Then there was Seth Rogen, popping up in the middle of it all. Random? Not really — he previously worked with Madonna on the upcoming second season of The Studio, the Apple TV+ comedy that became an awards darling. Seeing him mid-performance was exactly the kind of left-field energy these mega-openers need. He looked like he was having the time of his life, which, fair enough.

The real deep-cut fans, though, lost it over Tony Ward. Ward — Madonna’s ex from the early ’90s and the co-star of “Cherish,” “Justify My Love” and “Erotica,” plus her infamous Sex book — appeared at a urinal in the sequence, at which point Madonna gave him a spank. I mean. You can’t make this stuff up, and you can’t imagine anyone else getting away with it. It was cheeky, it was very Madonna, and it was a nod to the era when she was the most controversial woman on the planet — a crown she wore like a badge of honor.

Debi Mazar was another familiar face, and hers might be the sweetest story of the night. The two have been friends since their New York club days, back when Madonna was broke and Debi was doing her makeup. Debi is literally name-checked in Madonna’s song “Danceteria,” and she previously appeared in Confessions II – The Film, including in the “Danceteria” sequence. Bringing her into the opener wasn’t a stunt — it was loyalty. Madonna does not forget the people who were there before the fame, and Debi Mazar is the definition of that.

Rounding out the guest list: hitmaking producer Andrew Watt, rising singer Sombr, and the model-turned-muse Gabbriette — a genuinely inspired mix of generations, genres, and scenes. The whole thing played less like an awards-show opener and more like a party where the guest list happened to be the coolest people alive.

What this says about the Confessions II era

Here’s the thing that has fans buzzing the loudest. Everything about this opener was built around Confessions II — “Bring Your Love,” “Danceteria Afterhours,” the “Danceteria” references, Debi Mazar’s presence from the Confessions II film. This wasn’t a greatest-hits victory lap. It was a statement about where Madonna is right now as an artist.

Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005) was one of the great commercial and critical comebacks in pop history — a disco record that sold millions and reminded everyone that Madonna reinvents better than anyone. If she’s building an entire era around its spiritual sequel, the message is clear: she thinks she has another reinvention in her. And honestly, after Sunday night, who would bet against her?

The “Best Collaboration” nomination for “Bring Your Love” also tells you something about how the industry is receiving this chapter. Nominations at this point in her career aren’t about chart positions. They’re about respect — the establishment acknowledging that the woman who built the modern pop playbook is still writing new chapters in it.

The rest of the night

Of course, the VMAs had plenty more going on — the show also saw Taylor Swift debut her “Patient Zero” music video, a star-packed clip featuring Dakota Johnson, Colin Farrell, Cara Delevingne and even NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford among its cameos. But let’s be honest: by the time the actual awards started, everyone was still talking about the opening. That’s the Madonna effect, and it hasn’t dimmed one watt in four decades.

The final word

Twenty-three years. That’s how long we waited to see Madonna perform at the VMAs again, and she made every minute of that wait worth it. She didn’t play it safe, she didn’t lean on nostalgia alone, and she didn’t hog the spotlight — she shared it with the present and future of pop while reminding everyone who built the stage they’re all standing on.

The Queen didn’t just come home. She redecorated the whole house, invited everyone she loves, and threw the best party of the year. Here’s hoping the Confessions II era gives us a whole lot more of this.

Source: Just Jared