Remembering Madonna’s three-way VMA kiss on its 20th anniversary, from the people who made it happen.
“I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through,” Britney Spears coos from the summit of a 20 foot wedding cake in Radio City Music Hall on August 28, 2003. Decked out in a custom wedding dress, cinched with a Boy Toy belt, the pop princess du jour is paying homage to the undisputed Queen of Pop, Madonna, who once famously stood atop that very cake herself, in a star-making performance at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards 20 years prior.
It’s a moment that’s crystallized in pop culture history, a cornerstone in all three artists’ careers and one of the last occasions the VMAs felt like truly essential viewing. As the kiss turns 20, NYLON spoke to a number of stakeholders involved in its creation to better understand how exactly it came together — and to seek answers to some of the questions that have always swirled around it.
Today, it’s hard to imagine the performance with anyone but the final cast. After all, a huge part of what makes it so memorable was the shock of seeing Aguilera and Spears, suspected arch nemeses, join forces before the world. But for those on MTV’s side of the equation, it seems the pair were always at the top of their list. “I mean, from as early as I was involved, the first choices were Britney and Christina,” says Beth McCarthy Miller, who directed the 2003 VMAs.
“I called [Van] and I was like ‘You're gonna be either really happy or really sad, but I think you're gonna be happy!’” she recalls. Equally as infamous as the kiss itself was the decision to cut to Spears’ recent ex-boyfriend’s pensive, painfully controlled reaction. “All you can do is plan it and script it and block it,” Frattini notes. “We knew Justin [Timberlake] was going to be there, so I think that was intentional.” The domino effect of the call was losing most of Aguilera’s kiss in the process, a move that caused much controversy, with Aguilera’s camp reportedly furious at the network for spoiling her moment.
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