By Mesfin Fekadu, Music Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --It's raining nominations for Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande's "Rain on Me" at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, which will present new categories focused on live performances and music videos created at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Gaga and Grande both scored nine nominations each, including video of the year for their No. 1 dance hit. "Rain on Me" is also competing for song of the year, best collaboration, best pop, best cinematography, best visual effects and best choreography.
Billie Eilish and The Weekend, the second-most nominated acts with six, are also up for video of the year with "everything i wanted" and "Blinding Lights." Others nominated for the top prize include Taylor Swift's "The Man," Future and Drake's "Life Is Good" and Eminem's "Godzilla," which features late rapper Juice WRLD.
The VMAs, to air live on Aug. 30 from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, introduces two new categories reflecting the current pandemic times: best music video from home and best quarantine performance.
Grande and Justin Bieber's No. 1 hit "Stuck with U" will compete for best music video from home along with Drake's "Toosie Slide," John Legend's "Bigger Love," 5 Seconds of Summer's "Wildflower," blink-182's "Happy Days" and twenty one pilots' "Level of Concern," which topped the Billboard rock songs chart for seven weeks and features the lyrics, "Will you be my little quarantine?"
R&B duo Chloe x Halle, who have successfully promoted their new album during the pandemic with impressive live performances mostly put on in their tennis court and outside their new home, are nominated for best quarantine performance for "Do It" from MTV's virtual prom "Prom-athon." Other nominees include Gaga's "Smile" from the TV special "One World: Together At Home";Legend's "#togetherathome" concert; DJ D-Nice's "Club MTV presents #DanceTogether"; CNCO's "MTV Unplugged At Home"; and Post Malone's tribute to Nirvana.
Apart from the pandemic, protest songs reflecting the Black experience created in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others also earned VMA nominations. R&B star H.E.R.'s "I Can't Breathe," Anderson.Paak's "Lockdown" and Lil Baby's "The Bigger Picture" all scored nominations in the video for good category.
Swift, who released a surprise album last week, will also compete for video for good with her song about sexism, "The Man." She scored five nominations overall, while Drake, Dua Lipa, J Balvin and Bieber earned four nominations apiece.
Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby — who both launched No. 1 pop hits this year — earned three nods each, including bids for artist of the year. Their competition includes Gaga, Bieber, The Weeknd and Post Malone.
BTS, Harry Styles, Roddy Ricch, Post Malone, Future, Karol G and Doja Cat — who topped the charts this year with her Dr. Luke-produced smash "Say So" — also earned three nods each. Starting Thursday through Aug. 23, fans can vote for VMA winners across 15 gender-neutral categories here.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
Weinstein,... Read More