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MTV Controversies That Could Win A VMA For Biggest Scandal
As everyone who loves to reminisce about when MTV was awesome knows, it used to be all about the music videos. Today, MTV is credited with helping launch the careers of artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, and thousands more.
But when Viacom purchased MTV in 1985, it gradually rearranged the network’s priorities away from purely showing music videos and toward becoming a purveyor of pop culture, specifically aimed at young people. Over time, MTV became the home of everything from Beavis and Butthead to Jackass to Teen Mom. Naturally, in the process of courting young people’s attention, MTV has courted controversy. All those programs mentioned above, plus many more, have pushed the envelope of good taste and what’s acceptable on TV.
But music still makes for controversial headlines, too. Quite a few of these scandalous moments involve the MTV Video Music Awards, AKA the VMAs. This shouldn’t be a surprise. In general, whenever you attempt to quantify an entire industry’s artistic achievements into a definitive “best of” award system, you’re going to invite conflict - especially when big egos are involved. Just think of Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift's win.
Vote below for the most shocking moments in MTV history.
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Two Teenagers Sued After Being Sprayed With Feces For The Unaired Show 'Dude, This Sucks'
The Scandal: In 2000, MTV began producing a series called Dude, This Sucks, a show that unfortunately lived up to its name way too well. It was a talent show with three judges who would watch teams of contestants perform “talents” in 45-minute increments for cash prizes. If a judge didn’t like what they saw, they would smash a hammer down on their podium and the audience would shout the show’s name.
The pilot was filmed at Big Bear, a mountain community near Los Angeles that’s home to several ski resorts. One of the teams featured in the pilot called themselves “The Shower Rangers.” During their set, the duo, who haven’t been named, appeared dressed in scouting uniforms. At one point, they bared their backsides to the audience and defecated, having taken laxatives before their “performance.”
Two girls in attendance, 13-year-olds Monique Garcia and Kelli Sloat, were splattered. Garcia said:
We were having a good time until the second act of Dude, This Sucks went on. All of a sudden, I was smelling something disgusting and I started to gag. I looked around at my friends. They were covered in something. As I looked down at myself, I realized that I was too.
The Aftermath: Garcia and Sloat hired celebrity attorney Gloria Allred to represent them in a lawsuit against MTV, which alleged infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and battery. The result of that lawsuit, which was filed in April 2001, hasn’t been made public, but MTV opted not to air the pilot and apologized.
Brian Graden, MTV president of programming, said:
This was a terrible incident. It was unintended and we regret that it happened. I was not aware of the content of this segment prior to the taping and have taken steps to ensure that an incident of this nature never happens again… The footage from the show, part of a pilot taped on remote location, has never and will never air. We are sorry if these women were hurt. It is certainly never our intention to hurt anyone.
As for the Shower Rangers, their ultimate fate is lost to history.
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The Scandal: Everyone remembers the 2009 VMAs for one thing: the moment when Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to proclaim:
Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time.
But let’s add some context. Swift, then 19, had just won a Moon Person for Best Video by a Female Artist, for her “You Belong with Me” music video. She beat out 28-year-old Beyoncé and her video, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” which is indeed an all-time classic. It was also Swift’s only nomination and win of that year.
There are many ways to read this. Was West, then 32, gallantly defending Beyoncé? Was he upstaging Swift? Both? There’s a reason why we’re all still thinking about it years later.
The Aftermath: Let’s add some more context. Later that same evening, Beyoncé won the Video of the Year VMA for “Single Ladies.” This might seem counter-intuitive. Why would Beyoncé win the award for best overall video but not the award for best female video? Because the VMAs aren’t really designed that way. Giving Beyoncé every single award that year would have eliminated the opportunity to showcase other artists, both established and emerging. In her acceptance speech, Beyoncé herself reflected on how much winning VMAs as part of Destiny’s Child earlier in her career meant to her, and she invited Swift onstage to complete her acceptance speech.
Immediately after the incident, West was asked to leave the event. Swift had to perform a partially live version of “You Belong with Me” despite a post-incident backstage crying session with Beyoncé. West apologized later that night on his blog, but by then the incident was already permanently part of the cultural zeitgeist.
President Obama called West a “jack*ss,” while Donald Trump called for a boycott of the artist. Some argue that the incident catapulted Swift to another level of fame, but she’s noted that she was already quite famous beforehand.
Many other twists and turns have occurred since the 2009 VMAs, with Swift characterizing West as essentially a bully who tried to thwart her success, and West’s camp characterizing Swift as playing the victim. Vox described it as a 21st-century morality tale, and like any morality tale, the moral depends on your point of view.
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The Scandal: Yes, it’s well documented that reality shows are far from actual reality. Even the most ethically produced are still subject to editing and manipulation that distorts what “really” happened.
But some reality shows are more real than others, and Pimp My Ride is parked on the “fake” end of the spectrum. In 2015, three former contestants on Pimp My Ride, Jake Glazier, Seth Martino, and Justin Dearinger, told the Huffington Post about all the ways the show’s version of events was different from what really happened.
Fancy additions to their cars, like TV screens and gull-wing doors, didn’t actually work and had to be removed. A pop-up champagne serving machine also had to be removed for obvious legal reasons. The show allegedly didn’t do enough mechanical work on their cars to get them to function properly.
Additionally, Dearinger and Glazier both recalled having to re-film their reaction shots to display more enthusiasm. Martino remembered the production team filling his vehicle with candy wrappers to make fun of his weight.
The Aftermath: Co-executive producer Larry Hochberg was also interviewed for the Huffington Post piece, and he disputed nearly all of the former contestants’ claims - in particular, he argued that their cars were so badly maintained that no amount of mechanical work would have fixed them.
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The Scandal: Super Bowl XXXVIII aired on CBS in February 2004 and pitted the New England Patriots against the Carolina Panthers. But it’s probably best known for its half-time show. Produced by MTV, the show featured appearances by local marching bands and various musicians like Kid Rock, Jessica Simpson, Diddy, and Nelly. The closing number featured a duet between Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, who sang Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body.” To punctuate the lyric, “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song,” Timberlake ripped away part of Jackson’s costume, revealing her right breast. It was visible for 9/16ths of a second before CBS cut to commercial.
The Aftermath: CBS attended rehearsals for the entire week leading up to the performance, but Jackson explained the following day that the decision to do a “costume reveal” was made after final rehearsals. Jackson’s spokesman claimed that the intention wasn’t for Jackson’s breast to be exposed, but for Timberlake to simply pull away her bustier and reveal a red lace bra.
Nevertheless, there was a lot of blowback. The Federal Communications Commission issued a record $550,000 in fines. While Timberlake escaped relatively unscathed, Jackson was blacklisted, being banned from MTV, CBS, and the Grammys broadcast.
The incident had wide-ranging ripple effects on the TV industry as well. Producers for many different types of content, from other musical performances to soap operas, toned down their content. On the other hand, the incident is also credited with establishing TiVo, as 35,000 people signed up for the service after the incident.
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The Scandal: In 2003, 25-year-old Ashton Kutcher had already made a name for himself by starring in movies like Dude, Where’s My Car? and the sitcom That '70s Show. It was the first year he hosted the MTV show Punk’d, in which he mostly pranked his fellow celebrities. And it was also the year he starred in the Steve Martin comedy Cheaper By the Dozen, alongside a teenage Hilary Duff. In the movie, he plays Duff’s character’s older sister’s boyfriend.
During the first season of Punk’d, Duff was one of the show’s targets. Here’s how Kutcher described her on camera:
Hilary Duff is in Lizzie McGuire. She also has an album out. She’s going to be in Cheaper By the Dozen. And she’s one of the girls that we’re all waiting for to turn 18. Along with the Olsen twins.
When the episode aired in October 2003, Duff had recently turned 16 and the Olsen twins were 17.
The Aftermath: While Kutcher’s comments undoubtedly raised eyebrows when he first said them, they drew widespread backlash when they resurfaced in 2023, around the time when That ‘70s Show star Danny Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life for raping two women. During Masterson’s trial, it was revealed that Kutcher and his wife and fellow That ’70s Show co-star Mila Kunis wrote letters to the court vouching for Masterson’s character.
While Kutcher and Kunis did apologize publicly for supporting Masterson, to date Kutcher hasn’t addressed his Punk’d comments.
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The Scandal: Beavis and Butt-Head was definitely known for pushing the boundaries of good taste, but this particular bit of controversy might not have been warranted - and was later revealed to possibly be a hoax.
Here’s what the New York Times reported in 1993. That year, five-year-old Ohio resident Austin Messner reportedly watched the cartoon and was so taken with the duo’s casual pyromania that he decided to set fire to his family’s trailer. This resulted in the death of his two-year-old sister, Jessica. The Times also reported that a fire chief in a different Ohio town claimed three girls started a fire after being similarly inspired by the program.
The Aftermath: MTV accepted these stories as at least plausible and pledged to “re-examine issues regarding Beavis and Butt-Head,” as spokesperson Carole Robinson put it. This amounted to removing references to Beavis’s love of fire from reruns and moving the show from a 6:30 pm time slot to after 10 pm.
But about 15 years later, Austin Messner disputed this version of events. He claimed he’d never seen Beavis and Butt-Head because the family didn’t have cable. As of 2011, Messner’s mother Darcy Burk still blamed the show for influencing her son to start the fire - which the New York Post reported began because Austin was playing with a cigarette lighter. She also told that paper that she and Austin didn’t then have a relationship.
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7An Online Video, 'New Years Resolutions for White Guys,' Was Deleted After Backlash
The Scandal: Flashback to December 2016. Donald Trump had just won an upset electoral college victory over Hillary Clinton, despite running a campaign that many saw as racist, misogynist, ableist, xenophobic, homophobic, and above all part of a larger trend of political success for right-wing populism.
But some observers also saw it as a validation of cishet white male grievance, like MTV. In response to Trump’s victory, MTV News released a video of so-called “New Years Resolutions for White Guys,” noting that this group could “do a little better in 2017.”
Presented by a collection of people who are not white, cisgender, heterosexual males, the video makes a series of suggestions on how an average white cishet guy who presumably voted for Trump could broaden their worldview. “Try to recognize that America was never 'great' for anyone who wasn't a white guy," says the first.
“Can we all just agree that ‘Black Lives Matter’ isn’t the opposite of ‘All Lives Matter’? Black lives just matter. There’s no need to overcomplicate it,” says the second.
“Learn what mansplaining is and then stop doing it,” says another.
The Aftermath: The video was met with immediate and severe backlash. Conservative media outlets like the National Review called it “vacuous.” Viewers of the video didn’t respond favorably, either. When MTV decided to delete the video from YouTube less than 48 hours after posting, it had already received 89 thumbs-ups and 11,922 thumbs-downs.
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The Scandal: This one starts with Tom Green, the comedian, prankster, and talk show host whose eponymous show debuted on Canadian TV and made the jump to the US via MTV in 1999. For those who never saw it, Green’s show combined unpredictable talk show segments with pranks on an unsuspecting public, all of which paved the way for later series like MTV’s Jackass and Adult Swim’s The Eric Andre Show.
Green was a hit on MTV. One of his early sketches was a filmed comedy video called “Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song),” in which Green sings about rubbing his bottom on various objects while wearing an antiquated naval uniform.
Green first aired the video on his program, then urged his fans to call into MTV’s popular music video request show Total Request Live. TRL usually aired Monday through Thursday for an hour and was essentially a TV version of a radio call-in show. TRL claimed that viewers could supposedly call in to that day’s show and request their favorite videos, with the top 10 being played each day.
Within days of debuting, “The Bum Bum Song” reached the top spot on TRL, at which point Green abruptly retired it. At the time, he claimed it was because his song’s popularity “wasn’t fair to 98 Degrees.” But the reality was a bit more mundane.
The Aftermath: In 2010, Tom Green went on an early episode of The Joe Rogan Experience and explained what really happened. Turns out, Total Request Live wasn’t always filmed live. When “The Bum Bum Song” peaked at number one, TRL had already filmed the next week’s episodes because host Carson Daly was on tour in Seattle, without anticipating “The Bum Bum Song"’s success. Wanting to preserve the show’s image, MTV asked Green to retire his song so it wouldn’t be eligible. Green acquiesced because he didn’t want to be fired, but later regretted not milking the song further and perhaps doing an entire album based around it.
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9MTV Canceled 'Buckwild' Because Of Its Star's Accidental Death
The Scandal: Buckwild premiered on MTV in January 2013 and was billed as a sort of Jersey Shore but set in Appalachia, following the lives of a group of young people as they partied and hung out around Sissonville, WV (and like Jersey Shore, this angered locals and their politicians including Senator Joe Manchin, who told MTV the show was a “travesty”).
The show received mixed reviews but strong ratings, earning the top spot on Thursday nights among 12-34 year olds, or about 3 million people an episode. The first season was enough of a success that MTV renewed it when it concluded in February.
Weeks later, tragedy struck. Breakout star Shain “Gandee Candy” Gandee, 21, his uncle David, and a friend named Donald Myers left a Sissonville bar at 3 am to go four-wheeling. About a day later, the three men were found dead inside Gandee’s vehicle. It had become stuck in the mud, which submerged the muffler and led to carbon monoxide poisoning.
The Aftermath: A week after Shain Gandee’s death, MTV canceled the series even though it had already shot four episodes of Season 2. It deemed Gandee as too essential to the series to continue without him, a decision that was criticized by producer J.P. Williams, who said:
This is a network that has shows about teen pregnancy. They'll stick by a show that allows you to abandon a child, but a kid dies by accident doing what he does for a living and they cancel the show?
The producers of Buckwild sold another show to MTV with similar vibes that was set in Alaska called Slednecks. It failed to capture the public’s attention like Buckwild had and was canceled after one season.
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10A 2010 Study Suggested 'Laguna Beach' Caused An Increase In The City's Crime
The Scandal: The reality series Laguna Beach premiered in September 2004 and ran for three seasons, chronicling the lives of a group of affluent teenagers living in a California beach town. It was part of a wave of new reality shows from the early aughts that changed the landscape of TV, with many of those shows airing on MTV.
According to researchers including Lesley Chiou and Mary Lopez, who studied the relationship between reality TV shows and crime and published their findings in the 2010 journal Economic Letters, while the show Laguna Beach did raise the city of Laguna Beach’s profile, it also saw a disproportionate rise in several types of crime, including residential burglaries, auto thefts, and rapes. Their paper also reports that Laguna Beach parents believe the TV series is responsible for higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse in teens.
The Aftermath: Various other studies have linked reality television to harmful human behavior, like this 2021 Central Michigan study that claimed people were more likely to be aggressive after watching an episode of reality TV that contained “verbal and relational aggression.”
But academic studies don’t necessarily permeate the public consciousness. Reality remains a popular genre, with reality TV shows making up 18% of the 250 most-watched series in 2017. Today, 33% of people 18-29 years old watch them.
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11A 'Skins' Reboot Was Canceled After Being Called 'The Most Dangerous Television Show For Children'
The Scandal: Skins was a teen comedy series that premiered on E4 in the UK in 2007 and attracted an audience by tackling controversial subjects like teen sex and drug use. Content like that seemed tailor-made for MTV, so the network ordered an American remake that premiered in January 2011.
But American cultural tastes are different than British. The Parents Television Council condemned the show, calling it “the most dangerous television show for children that we have ever seen.” It also urged the Senate and House Judiciary Committees as well as the Department of Justice to open an investigation into the show for violating child p*rnography laws.
The Aftermath: While MTV did air Season 1 of Skins in its entirety, it decided to cancel the show in June 2011. The network specifically cited the show’s controversial content, as well as the decisions of advertisers like Taco Bell, General Motors, and Wrigley to pull out of the series. The British Skins continued until 2013, airing seven seasons in total.
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The Scandal: By the time of the 1989 Video Music Awards in September, Andrew Dice Clay wasn’t quite at the peak of his comedy stardom, but he was well on his way - the following year, he would become the first comic to sell out Madison Square Garden on two consecutive nights. By this point, Clay had established his “Diceman” persona, a character who was brash, rude, and didn’t take advice or suggestions from anybody.
At one point during the awards ceremony, Clay was supposed to introduce Cher. According to Clay, producer Dick Clark wanted him to vamp with Arsenio Hall should they need to stretch for time, which two other comics had already tried to do earlier in the evening without success. Instead, Clay went out and did his act, which included some of his signature R-rated nursery rhymes, as well as his “observations” about women’s attractiveness. The set is available online.
The Aftermath: Shortly after the event, MTV banned Clay from appearing on the network again. However, this ban wasn’t exactly tightly enforced, as Clay appeared at the 1992 awards in a comedy sketch making fun of the incident. The network ultimately lifted the ban in 2011, and the incident certainly didn’t reduce Clay’s popularity.
Scandalous?The Scandal: At the 2000 VMAs, Limp Bizkit and Rage Against the Machine were both nominated for Best Rock Video, for “Break Stuff” and “Sleep Now in the Fire,” respectively. (Creed, Kid Rock, Korn, and Metallica were the other nominees.) When the astronaut statuette went to Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine bassist Tim Commerford decided to live up to his band’s name. Commerford rushed the stage and climbed up into the 15-foot-tall tree-like set. While music stars of all varieties watched, and some urged him to jump, Commerford shifted his bodyweight to make the set sway, then scuffled with security guards before finally agreeing to come down after about 10 minutes.
Even Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was impressed, stating:
This guy is rock & roll. He should be getting the award. I hope he’s OK. I hope he gets his head checked soon.
Security wasn’t so impressed. Commerford was arrested and charged with assault and resisting arrest, while his bodyguard, who jumped to his defense, was arrested and charged with obstructing justice.
The Aftermath: This one blew over pretty much immediately. Commerford and his bodyguard appeared in court the next day, where they pleaded guilty and were sentenced to time served, allowing them to go free. Neither man was fined, either. Sometimes the machine can be pretty lenient.
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The Scandal: Jersey Shore was another in a long line of MTV reality shows that documented a subculture, in this case, young Italian-Americans who frequented the eponymous Jersey Shore (although not all cast members actually were Italian-American, which was one of the complaints levied against the show.)
Before Jersey Shore even premiered in December 2009, it attracted controversy for a trailer in which the narrator referred to cast members by an offensive term for Italian-Americans.
Italian-American organizations condemned the series. “Trash television sells, and they’d be more interested in making money than how they’re offending a great group of people,” said Andre Dimino of UNICO International, an Italian-American service organization. Even Governor Chris Christie chimed in, pointing out that many people who hung out on the Jersey Shore are actually New Yorkers, and highlighting the area as a great place to vacation.
The Aftermath: The criticism certainly didn’t dull the show’s popularity, and probably contributed to it, as it often does. Jersey Shore aired for a total of six seasons until it ended in 2012. Today, Jersey Shore is a bona fide franchise with various spinoffs and specials, like All Star Shore and Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.
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The Scandal: For those who aren’t tapped into the cult hit that is Clone High, it’s an animated sitcom created by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Bill Lawrence. A parody of high school dramas like Dawson’s Creek and Degrassi, it centers on a school populated by teenage versions of cloned historical figures, like Abraham Lincoln, Cleopatra, JFK, Gandhi, and many more. We can debate how closely each of these portrayals hews to their historical inspiration, but in Gandhi’s case, it’s nowhere near accurate. Teenage clone Gandhi, or G-Man as he’s known, is pretty much a fun-loving party animal.
Even though the show is a lighthearted comedy, many people took issue with this portrayal. Season 1 aired between late 2002 and 2003 in the US and Canada, but not internationally. An Indian newspaper reported on the show, and to mark Martyr’s Day on January 30, 2003, the anniversary of Gandhi’s 1948 assassination, nearly 150 Indian politicians fasted in protest.
The Aftermath: Days later, MTV issued an apology. “MTV US apologizes if we have offended the people of India and the memory of Mahatma Gandhi," the network said, adding that it has the "utmost respect" for the historical figure. MTV also noted that Clone High was intended for an American and Canadian audience and wasn’t being shown internationally.
MTV canceled Clone High shortly after the scandal, citing low ratings. But Clone High wasn’t quite extinct. In 2021, Max ordered a two-season revival, with Season 2 airing in 2023 and Season 3 airing in 2024 before being canceled again in 2024. The Gandhi character did not appear in the revival.
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The Scandal: Jackass is one of the most popular MTV shows of all time, and one of the few MTV television programs to earn the distinction of getting not just one but multiple movies. The setup for these properties is about as simple as it gets. Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of masochists perform dangerous stunts, humiliating challenges, and occasionally humorous pranks against each other.
The show premiered in October 2000, airing three seasons before the end of 2001. But this didn’t sit well with a Hot Springs, MT, resident who was born Robert Craft, but who in 1997 changed his name to “Jack Ass.”
When Jackass premiered, Ass was a freelance telephone and electric lineman who spent much of his spare time promoting his “Hearts Across America” anti-drunk driving campaign, which encouraged the use of designated drivers. One campaign slogan was “Be a smart a**, not a dumb a**.” Accordingly, Craft changed his name to bring further attention to the cause.
Ass felt that the MTV program was infringing on his likeness. He spent two years searching for an attorney to help him file a lawsuit before ultimately deciding to act as his own lawyer and do it himself in 2002. In “Jack Ass v. Viacom International, Inc.,” he asked for $10 million in compensation.
The Aftermath: Ultimately, the question of whether Jackass’ creators knowingly named their show after a Montana activist will never be answered. Ass mistakenly filed his copyright infringement lawsuit in state court, not federal, and when it was moved to federal, it was thrown out. Ass died by suicide the following year.
It’s worth mentioning that MTV and Jackass were also blamed for multiple injuries sustained by Jackass-hopefuls who filmed their own stunts hoping to be included on the show. In 2001, MTV denied responsibility for these accusations, noting that both the show and MTV’s website clearly state that Jackass doesn’t take outside submissions.
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