If you watched the 2015 VMAs last night, then you know the most bonkers award show of the year definitely delivered it’s usual mix of spontaneous insanity and carefully choreographed PR stunts.
(We’re gonna go out on a limb and say Justin Bieber crying on stage falls into the latter category.)
Of course, one of the most talked-about moments came when Nicki Minaj accepted her award for Best Hip-Hop Video and took the opportunity to address some bad blood between herself and Miley Cyrus.
The beef dates back to last week, when Miley slammed Nicki as "angry" and "not polite" in an interview with The New York Times.
The comment came in response to a question about Nicki’s feud with Taylor Swift that erupted in the wake of the VMA nomination announcements.
So it was a VMA-fueled beef that came to a head at the VMAs. Seems almost too perfect to be true…which has of course led many to believe that it is.
The footage has been dissected more times than the Zapruder film in the 12 hours or so since Nicki and Miley squared off on live TV, and many have cited the brief smile that flashes across Nicki’s face at the 1:53 mark of this clip as evidence that both women were in on the joke.
Others believe there’s no way that Miley would’ve willingly put herself in the position of being called out on what was supposed to be her big night. (Cyrus even used the show as a platform to announce that her surprise new album.)
There are some full-blown conspiracy theories floating around the web from those who think Miley’s shot at Nicki in the Times was all part of the gag. If so, that was an awful lot of work to set the stage for an incredibly brief back-and-forth.
Ultimately, the diss heard ’round the world left us with more questions than answers.
Would MTV really put two artists with very public beef on the same stage if they hadn’t worked something out in advance?
Would Nicki and Miley really go to such great lengths just to stage a ratings-grabbing moment?
If so, couldn’t Miley have come up with a better response?
We may never know the full truth behind this feud, but as always the case with the VMAs, the important thing is that it made for good TV.
