So here’s the basics from MTV’s US award fest last night…
Missy Elliott, who has never previously won a VMA despite 17 nominations, won Video of the Year and Best Hip-Hop Video for ‘Work It’, which came to the event with eight nominations.
Justin Timberlake and Coldplay each won three trophies: Timberlake's ‘Cry Me a River’ beating Johnny Cash’s ‘Hurt’ for Best Male Video. JT also won Best Pop Video and Best Dance Video.
Cash, who in the end was too ill to attend, won Best Cinematography; only one out of the six categories for which he was nominated.
Coldplay had wins with Best Group Video, Best Breakthrough Video and Best Direction for ‘The Scientist’ which the band performed live and dedicated to Cash.
Beyoncé's ‘Crazy in Love’ won Best R&B Video and Best Choreography, and 50 Cent's ‘In Da Club’, won Best New Artist and Best Rap Video.
Good Charlotte won the Viewer's Choice Award for ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’, and Linkin Park won Best Rock Video for ‘Somewhere I Belong’.
Eminem won Best Video From a Film for the ‘8 Mile’ anthem ‘Lose Yourself’.
The MTV2 Award - voted for by viewers - went to AFI.
Radiohead and Queens of the Stone Age both won their first VMAs, for Best Art Direction (‘There There’) and Best Special Effects (‘Go With the Flow’). The White Stripes won Best Editing for ‘Seven Nation Army’.
Jack Black rightly won Super Genius of the Universe Award.
Aguilera lost in all four of the categories for which she was nominated and Jennifer Lopez (4), Kelly Clarkson (3), Sean Paul (2), Evanescence (2), Avril Lavigne (2), Sum 41 (2), Nelly (2) and No Doubt (2) also left empty handed.
Outkast arrived on a flatbed truck replete with a stripper pole, that Big Boi called “the portable boom boom room".
Oh yes, and Madonna kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in a three-way. Which apparently made all the boys happy.