Taylor Swift opened the MTV Video Music Awards on Monday night with a message of acceptance and love. Later in the evening, she won video of the year, and during her acceptance speech, she advocated for those same themes once again.
The 29-year-old musician returned to the stage where 10 years ago, she was infamously interrupted by rapper Kanye West. This year, she performed "You Need to Calm Down," the second single from her new album "Lover," which came out on Friday. That track earned Swift seven VMA nominations. In addition to those seven nods, the "Shake It Off" singer earned another three for her song "ME!" with Panic at the Disco's Brendon Urie.
Those 10 nominations made Swift the most nominated artist of the night, tying with Ariana Grande who was also nominated for 10 awards as well. They were followed by Billie Eilish with nine and Lil Nas X with eight.
Later in the evening, Swift added two Moonmen to her trophy closet, including wins for video for good and video of the year.
Swift gave the acceptance speech for the second award she won during the night: video of the year.
"In this video several points were made," she said. "You voting for this video means you want a world where we all treated equally regardless of who we love and how we identify."
Swift then plugged her petition for the Equality Act, explaining it "basically says we all deserve equal rights under the law."
The pair of big wins come days after Swift released her seventh album, "Lover."
On the album, Swift pays touching tribute to her mother, Andrea, with a song titled “Soon You’ll Get Better.” The ballad is a deeply emotional look at how Swift and her family have been handling her mom’s cancer diagnosis, something the singer hasn’t been too open about in recent months.