This year’s VMAs were hosted on September 7th, at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. The Weeknd was nominated for a total of seven awards, including “Artist of the Year”. He was also nominated for “Song of the Year” and “Best R&B” for his song “Timeless” with Playboi Carti. The music video for “Timeless” was also nominated for “Video of the Year”. His album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, got nominated for “Best Album”, “Best Visuals”, and “Best Longform Video”. Within 302 days after the album’s release, Timeless reached over 1 billion streams on Spotify, making it one of the most streamed songs of the year, and his 28th song to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify.
The first time the music artist, The Weeknd, was nominated for a VMA award was back in 2013. He was nominated for “Artists to Watch” and “Best Visual Effects” for this song, “Wicked Games”. He unfortunately did not win any of these awards that year. The Weeknd was also asked to perform for the VMAs in 2017, but bailed on performing because he “didn’t feel like it”. The first time The Weeknd won an award was back in 2020. During that year, The Weeknd was nominated for 6 categories for his song, “Blinding Lights” and won two awards: “Best R&B” and “Video of the Year”. However, during the 2025 VMAs, he didn’t even show up.
A lot of fans of The Weeknd feel that he was robbed at the VMAs because he did not win any awards, despite being nominated for multiple awards following the release of his new album, Hurry Up Tomorrow. This album debuted 58 million streams globally on the first day of the song release. Numerous artists along with The Weeknd also got numerous nominations, but received no awards, such as Ed Sheerman, Miley Cyrus, and Bad Bunny.
We’ve asked students about their take on the VMAs this year and how they felt about The Weeknd’s nominations. A 12th grade student at BHS, Shaima Baki, replied with “I believe that he deserves more awards for the musical achievements and contributions he made”. An anonymous student also agrees and said “I think he deserved an award because he’s been around for a long time, is very popular, and his music is not bad”. We also asked them their thoughts about the Weeknd’s album and music video. Shaima Baki answered with “I liked Hurry Up Tomorrow, wasn’t his best album in my opinion but it was good”. The same anonymous student answered with, “I think his music video for Timeless should have won music video of the year”.
It is obvious that The Weeknd deserved to win at least one nomination out of the seven awards he was nominated for. Hopefully next time, The Weeknd, who will change his stage name to his real name, Abel Tesfaye, will receive a VMA award for his next upcoming song or album.
