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VMAs Producer Shares Story Behind Taylor Swift’s Artist Director Win

Watch: Did Charli XCX Subtly Shade Taylor Swift at VMAs 2026? The Truth

The MTV VMAs team was ready to honor Taylor Swift.

Days after the “Cleveland!” singer accepted the Artist Director Award that Swift at the Sept. 27 ceremony, producer Van Toffler revealed how it came to be.

“Basically, a bunch of us—MTV employees, the producers, the production team—were looking at Taylor’s body of work and her evolution,” Toffler told Rolling Stone in an interview published Sept. 28. “She’s an artist who has thrived in front of the camera and behind the camera, in all genres of music.”

And it had been clear to Toffler and MTV that Swift—who became the most decorated artist in VMAs history at the ceremony, where she premiered her “Patient Zero” video—deserved recognition for the artistry she brought to the visual format.

“She takes that work so seriously in all aspects of those videos,” he added. “They are short films, no doubt. She makes exceptional videos, so we felt this would be the right time to honor her for that.”

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Did Charli XCX Subtly Shade Taylor Swift at VMAs 2026? The Truth

Meanwhile, Toffler highlighted that fans also recognized her contributions to the video space, nodding to Swift’s win for “Fate of Ophelia,” adding, “It turns out she also won Video of the Year.”

It also felt like a full circle moment for Toffler, who noted that Swift took home her first CMT Award with “Tim McGraw” winning Breakthrough Video of the Year in 2007 while he was in charge of the ceremony.

Not to mention, Swift went on to have an even more pivotal night in her career at the VMAs 2009, when she took home “Best Female Video” for “You Belong With Me,” which prompted the on-stage interruption Kanye West—a moment that spiraled into a years-long feud—as well as a sweet moment with Beyoncé, when the singer gave Swift an opportunity to deliver an acceptance speech after taking home Video of the Year for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Simply referring to the evening as “the show at Radio City,”—which is where the VMAs took place in 2009—Toffler called it “a memorable night.”

“She’s just evolved so much, and we felt this would be a great way to honor her work,” he detailed. “So, we decided to do that as a group internally in the production team and reached out to her and her team. We’re happy it worked out.”

Naturally, Swift expressed a similar sentiment in her acceptance speech—especially championing her fans for allowing her to expand as an artist.

“I got to start making music videos and being a part of these videos 20 years ago and since then, I’ve gotten to be a part of making 60 music videos,” she said during her acceptance speech. “Eighteen of those I wrote and directed, and I really love writing and directing music videos. I’ve got to tell you, though, the main reason why I love writing and directing music videos so much is because you, the fans, make it so much fun.”

For more fascinating facts about Taylor, keep reading…

Roger L Wollenberg/UPI/Shutterstock

1. While Taylor Swift writes all of her own music, she specifically wrote her entire Speak Now album all by herself. No co-writers, just her. The album was released in Oct. 2010, when Taylor was just 20.2. She grew up on a Christmas tree farm with her family in Pennsylvania. She references her time there on her holiday song of the same name.3. She’s named after James Taylor. That’s right, from one music legend to another.

Kevin Mazur/AMA2019/Getty Images for dcp

4. She’s a former Abercrombie model. Just like fellow stars Channing Tatum, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Roberts and Ashton Kutcher, T.Swift modeled for the company in 2003.5. She gave Eric Church her first gold record. Back in 2006, she joined Rascal Flatts on their tour after Church was fired. “Actually, she called me after I got fired. I read in the paper that we were fired. She called and said ‘I want you to know that I love what you do,'” Church previously told the Arizona Daily Star. “I joked with her, ‘This is your crowd; they’re going to love you. You’re going to owe me your first gold record.’ I was kidding, but when she got her first gold record she gave me one. It came with a note: ‘Thanks for playing too long and too loud on the Flatts tour. I sincerely appreciate it. Taylor.'”

Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock

6. She has doubled-jointed elbows. During her 2016 Vogue 73 questions video, Taylor was asked if she has any “really cool or bizarre” talents. In response, she said, “OK, I’m well aware that this is not a talent, but this is like the only thing that I can do. I have double-jointed elbows.”7. Her drink of choice? Vodka and Diet Coke, as revealed in that same Vogue video.8. She turned off her comments on social media to “block some of the noise.” In her essay for Elle, entitled “30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30,” Taylor explained, “social media can be great, but it can also inundate your brain with images of what you aren’t, how you’re failing, or who is in a cooler locale than you at any given moment. One thing I do to lessen this weird insecurity laser beam is to turn off comments. Yes, I keep comments off on my posts. That way, I’m showing my friends and fans updates on my life, but I’m training my brain to not need the validation of someone telling me that I look [fire emojis].”

Stephen Lovekin/Variety/Shutterstock

9. She was originally going to name her seventh studio album Daylight before landing on Lover. But since the album was the follow-up to reputation, the singer thought the name Daylight would be a little too on the nose. So, when Taylor wrote the song “Lover,” she decided that would be the name of the album.10. She’s the youngest solo artist to win Album of the Year. T.Swift was just 20 when she won the top honors in 2010 for her beloved album, Fearless.

11. Taylor made history at the 2024 Grammys, becoming the first female artist to win Album of the Year four times. (For Fearless, 1989, Folklore and Midnights.)12. The singer’s album, Lover, sold over 1 million pure copies in the United States in its first few months alone, according to Chart Data. This was the first album to reach this milestone in 2019.

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13. More historic milestones! At the 2019 American Music Awards, Taylor surpassed Michael Jackson‘s record to become the most awarded artist at the AMAs. 14. As a child, Taylor wanted to be a stockbroker, just like her dad! But she went on to find her true calling in music, later moving from Pennsylvania to Tennessee with her family to kick off her career.15. She learned to play guitar around the age of 12 after learning a few chords from a technician who was fixing her computer. She then went on to write her first song, “Lucky You.”

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16. She’s “obsessed” with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. While talking about her love for Fleabag, Taylor told Entertainment Weekly, “She makes you crack up, shocks you, and breaks your heart all in the span of a few minutes in that show.” Taylor later performed on the SNL episode which the Amazon Prime star hosted!17. She wrote her own monologue for her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 2009, which doesn’t usually happen with celeb guests. Taylor clearly impressed the team with “Monologue Song (La La La).”18. She’s been BFFs with Selena Gomez since their respective relationships with the Jonas Brothers. (ICYMI, SelGo even supported her best friend in Nov. 2021 when she returned to SNL to perform the 10-minute version of “All Too Well.”) Back in 2008, Taylor spent time with Joe Jonas, while Gomez dated his younger brother, Nick Jonas. The two quickly became close pals, and have remained tight to this day. Taylor even offered to be the flower girl in Gomez’s wedding to fiance Benny Blanco.

Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS

19. Remember the “redhead named Abigail” that Taylor references in “Fifteen,” her beloved song about growing up? Well, she and Taylor are still BFFs, too! Abigail Anderson is her name, and Taylor was a bridesmaid in her wedding in 2017.20. She’s a godmother, holding that distinction for pal Jaime King‘s son Leo Thames and BFF Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds‘ daughters James, Inez and Betty.

Dave Hogan

21. Taylor has said that she may never perform her song “Soon You’ll Get Better,” which is about her mother’s cancer battle. During a Q&A session in Aug. 2019, as part of a SiriusXM Town Hall special, she shared, “It was hard to write, it’s hard to sing. It’s hard to listen to for me, but sometimes music is like that.” 22. She doesn’t have X, formerly known as Twitter, on her phone. In an interview with Billboard, Taylor explained, “Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.”

VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

23. She’s never been to therapy. “I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who’s seen everything,” Taylor told Rolling Stone in Sept. 2019. “God, it takes so long to download somebody on the last 29 years of my life, and my mom has seen it all.”

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24. According to an interview, her favorite lyrics off of her Lover album are, “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand? / With every guitar string scar on my hand/I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover.”25. Taylor is a billionaire! According to an Oct. 2024 report published by Bloomberg, after breaking records in the industry for over a decade, Taylor’s Eras Tour helped her achieve billionaire status.26. The 2019 Netflix film, Someone Great, inspired her music, “I cried watching the movie. For about a week, I start waking up from dreams that I’m living out that scenario—that that’s happening to me,” she told Elvis Duran during an interview. “I’d have these lyrics in my head based on the dynamics of these characters and I went in the studio with Jack Antonoff.” The studio session led to the creation of Taylor’s song, “Death By a Thousand Cuts.”27. She has a special place for her most emotional songs. From “All Too Well” to “The Archer,” the superstar reserves the fifth spot on her albums for a ballad.28. She’s over hiding from cameras: In fact, she’s proudly supported fiancé Travis Kelce at NFL games since 2023. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she told Time. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

29. Speaking of Travis, when Taylor and the NFL star announced their engagement on Instagram in Aug. 2025, it made history on the platform, with Billboard—citing date from Meta—reporting that it received over a million reposts.30. The engagement also helped inspire Cambridge Dictionary’s 2025 word of the year, “Parasocial.”31. Taylor made history following the Oct. 2025 release of her album, The Life of a Showgirl, which sold 2.7 million copies in its first day of release, according to the AP.32. Oh, and the album went on to sell 4 million copies in its first week alone.

Ashok Kumar/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

33. In The End of an Era, her Disney+ docuseries, Taylor said that two factors led to the creation of The Eras Tour: The sale of her masters and the pandemic.34. After a years-long battle, Taylor shared in May 2025 that she’d obtained the master recordings of her first six albums. “That’s how I spent that Eras Tour money,” Taylor shared on The Stephen Colbert Show Dec. 10. “My fans are why I was able to get my music back.”35. Taylor and her Eras band rehearsed surprise songs “quietly” on the tour so that fans outside the stadiums wouldn’t hear.36. At the end of each leg of the Eras Tour, Taylor gifted her crew bonuses, her docuseries confirmed.

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