Rihanna’s “Umbrella” single featuring rapper Jay-Z took home top honors at the 24th Annual MTV Video Music Awards last night (September 9) at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
“Umbrella” took home awards for top Video of the Year, as well as the Monster Single of the Year.
Justin Timberlake won Male Artist of the Year honors, while The Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie won Female Artist of the Year.
The evening featured performances and showcases in “fantasy suites,” hosted by artists like Kanye West, 50 Cent, Foo Fighters, Timbaland, Linkin Park and Alicia Keys, but the most talked about performance came from Britney Spears.
Spears gave a lukewarm performance of her latest single “Gimme More,” lip-synching the words to the song, while dancing halfheartedly around the stage.
“Feuding” rappers 50 Cent and Kanye West stood face-to-face together on the stage, while presenting the Most-Earth Shattering Collaboration Award, which went to Beyonce Knowles and Shakira.
A real scuffle broke out in the crowd during the awards ceremony between rival rockers Kid Rock and Tommy Lee, ex-husbands of Pamela Anderson Lee, who also presented during the show.
Prior to the Best New Act Award, which was won by Gym Class Heroes, rock/rapper Kid Rock allegedly punched Tommy Lee in the face, during the awards ceremony.
According to reports, Tommy Lee initiated the fight.
“When Tommy stands up is when Kid hit him the first time with a backhand,” producer Rich Nice told the Associated Press. “Then Tommy Lee looked like he was trying to get at him to aggressively retaliate and then Kid Rock hits Tommy Lee again — bong. And then security grabs Tommy Lee in a headlock and pulls him off.”
Foxx later cracked a joke to the crowd stating: “Stop all this white-on-white violence,” while Combs “It’s not just hip hop artists that sometimes has problems, rock and roll artists, yall sometimes have fights too. You got to stop the violence in rock n roll.”
Kid Rock was cited for misdemeanor battery after the show.
This is the second incident between the two artists.
Tommy Lee was assaulted last year after bad mouthing Kid Rock during Eminem’s Shady Bowl Super Party at the State Theatre in Detroit.
“There was not one f***in’ word spoken about Kid Rock, D-12, Detroit-anyone for that matter,” Tommy Lee told AllHipHop.com after the Feb. 2006 assault. “S**t, I was just chillin’ and havin’ a cool time. I love Detroit! All I can say to that f**k who sucker-punched me is: ‘Karma kills those who can’t kill themselves…”