Long before Kim K’s booty graced the front of Paper, Miley Cyrus ‘broke the internet’ with her notoriously controversial 2013 VMAs performance alongside Robin Thicke, where the pop star famously emerged, Birth of Venus-style, from the stomach of giant teddy bear, and then twerked while making graphic gestures with a foam finger.
Cyrus will be back to host this year’s VMAs on Sunday, and according to executive producer Garrett English, there are almost no limits to what the freewheeling pop star can and can’t do onstage.
“We’re giving her pretty free rein,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “Obviously there are standards and various other things that were always a part of it, but no, [no rules]… It never comes from a place of trying to limit the range, it’s always coming from a place of trying to open up the full palate.”
It’s no secret that nobody really watches the VMAs for the awards; rather, people tune in for the spectacle, and to catch the spontaneous viral moments the show’s many colorful performers are bound to elicit. By booking Cyrus as host — not to mention giving the Video Vanguard Award to legendary provocateur Kanye West — English seems well aware of what the people want.
“One of the great things about the show is we try to create an environment where that spontaneity can happen and that creative expression rules the day,” he continues. “However that manifests is what excites us. The ethos of the show is one that even though you may know who’s performing on the show or have context around what track is being performed or [you’ve] seen them in concert and the rest of it, the VMAs is always a place where the performances break barriers and do things that are different.”
Get your foam fingers — or at very least, your tweeting fingers — ready: the VMAs air Sunday on MTV at 9 p.m. E. T.