The wait is over. Kacey Musgraves is officially making her MTV VMAs debut.
At the show, set to air live from Barclays Center on September 12, the country-pop diva will unveil the world-premiere performance of her new song “Star-Crossed,” a sweltering heartbreaker released earlier this week. If you can’t wait that long, you’re in luck: The video for Musgraves’s newest single “Justified” is set to debut on MTV and CMT tonight (August 26) at 9 p.m. PT/12 a.m. ET and will air across MTV, MTV Live, MTVU, CMT, and CMT Music as well as on the ViacomCBS billboard in Times Square.
Musgraves’s fourth album, also titled Star-Crossed, will be out two days before the VMAs, on September 10, and her performance will pair nicely with the LP’s visual component, Star-Crossed: The Film, set to premiere the same day on Paramount+. The 50-minute film was filmed in Los Angeles and features appearances from Victoria Pedretti, Princess Nokia, Schitt’s Creek’s Eugene Levy, RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Symone, and comedian Megan Stalter.
Star-Crossed is Musgraves’s long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s much-celebrated Golden Hour, which took home four Grammys, including Album of the Year. As its title track lays out, the LP delves into tragedy, drawing influence from her personal life and, as she recently divulged in a recent interview, “couldn’t be more literal.”
“I also feel it’s got this theatrical kind of almost fantasy take,” she said. “I wanted there to be that classical story, that classical vibe, kind of woven through all these other modern sounds.”
With its title allusion to Romeo and Juliet — “[It means] to be fucked by love or luck,” Musgraves elaborated in that interview — and plenty of runway to stage a theatrical rendition of Musgraves’s own heartbreak and healing, “Star-Crossed” is set to be a capital-e Event at the 2021 VMAs. Better get the tissues ready.
Musgraves joins fellow VMA performers Camila Cabello, Chlöe, Doja Cat, Lil Nas X, Lorde, Machine Gun Kelly, Shawn Mendes and Olivia Rodrigo, and Twenty One Pilots for a night to remember. Doja Cat will also host the show. Find all the nominees right here, and vote for your favorites right now at vma.mtv.com.
The 2021 VMAs will air live on Sunday, September 12, at 8 p.m. ET/PT from Barclays Center in Brooklyn. This year’s awards will debut a newly redesigned Moonperson statue from fine artist Kehinde Wiley. They will also honor the victims of the 9/11 attacks by collaborating with the nonprofit 9/11 Day on a series of events to promote awareness and positive action around the day’s 20th anniversary.
