Posted by Years after denying it and making hateful jokes about it, someone at MTV is apparently trying to come clean by admitting — in a nondirect, cowardly way — that the late Michael Jackson did receive the “Artist of the Millennium” award in 2002.
The caption (see screenshot) underneath a picture of Michael Jackson that night reads: “Britney Spears presents Michael Jackson with the Artist of the Millennium Award at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards” (View big, full screenshot here).
If you remember, there was a big controversy as to how MTV promised to honor Jackson by presenting him with a new, special award. Jackson showed up, helping to boost their ratings, while MTV later made a mockery of the entire event.
The same night there was a controversy as to whether or not MTV actually gave Jackson an award, with some insiders saying higher-ups had MTV pull the award to teach Jackson a lesson. This was around or after the big falling out Jackson had with Sony Music.
MTV pretended like Jackson went up on stage and gave himself an award, or had a “misunderstanding” of how he was being honored that night; his birthday by the way.
But apparently nobody warned to the guys running MTV’s website that the award had been yanked or that Jackson was being made a fool out of because they posted the information about the Artist of the Millennium Award on MTV’s site that night. See screenshot from 2002 below:
The next year Jack Black participated in a disgusting — and rather unfunny actually — parody of the event where he mocked Jackson.
Now after Jackson’s death, along with the subsequent outing of MTV as a racist network in the 80s for refusing to play black videos before Jackson broke through, apparently they are a little less tight lipped with the truth.
Music Television (MTV) rarely plays videos at all anymore and at some point lost it’s edge and dedication to music a very long time ago.
MTV’s sudden realization of the power of Michael Jackson came too late… 7 years too late.