The Reason Lorde Didn’t Return to the MTV VMAs in 2025

THE RUNDOWN

• Lorde chose not to attend this evening’s MTV VMAs.
• The Virgin singer was nominated in three categories, including Best Pop Artist.
• Her latest album was released this summer.

On Sunday, Lorde was not at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards, choosing to skip the Elmont, New York, ceremony. The Grammy Award-winning singer was nominated in three categories: Best Pop Artist, Song of the Year for “What Was That,” and Best Art Direction for “Man of the Year.” She lost all her categories and kept a low profile that day.

She last attended the ceremony way back in 2017:

Lorde’s fourth album, Virgin, was released this summer after the singer took a bit of a hiatus from releasing new music. She told Radio 1 in May that she was motivated after working with Charli XCX on “Girl, so confusing” for Brat.

“Brat coming out really gave me a kick,” she shared. “Meeting her in that place of rugged vulnerability and people responding really well to that, I was kind of like, ‘OK cool, this is a good thing to be doing.’”

Lorde added, “I really suffer from this thing of not feeling my own power... and the remix just started me up, and I was like, ‘No no, people are listening, and they care, and your words carry real weight.’”

In “Girl, so confusing,” Lorde monologues about feelings of jealousy mixed with a desire for acceptance in the music industry.

“It forced me to further define what I was doing because Charli had so masterfully defined everything about Brat,” she continued. “And it’s so amazing when a peer throws the gauntlet down like that. We’ve gotta pick it up, and I’ve spoken to a lot of peers who all had the same feeling.”

The artist explained that this new album was supposed to sound very different from 2021’s Solar Power, saying, “It’s about going to the core of who I am in the purest way possible, stripping away anything unnecessary.”