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Taylor Swift Pays Tribute to Dolly Parton While Accepting Video of the Year Award at 2026 VMAs

Swift dedicates the award for "The Fate of Ophelia" to Dolly Parton, "the ultimate showgirl"

Taylor Swift Pays Tribute to Dolly Parton While Accepting Video of the Year Award at 2026 VMAs

Taylor Swift accepts the Video of the Year Award for “The Fate of Ophelia" at the 2026 MTV VMAs

Rich Polk/Billboard
By Angie Martoccio,
Angie Martoccio
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Brian Hiatt
Brian Hiatt
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Sep 28, 2026

Taylor Swift dedicated her award for Best Music Video at the 2026 Video Music Awards on Sunday to the late Dolly Parton, “the ultimate showgirl.” The winning video, “The Fate of Ophelia,” from Swift’s most recent album, The Life of a Showgirl, was written and directed by Swift herself.

“Thank you so much for giving this award to this video,” Swift said. “I’m so proud of it. To the fans, thank you for voting on it. I just, I loved making this video because I wanted it to seem like one continuous shot, so I learned a lot about hiding cuts in places, and I want to thank everybody who helped me on this video shoot.” She shouted out the video’s choreographer, Mandy Moore, its production designer, Ethan Tobman, its cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, and its editor, Chancler Haynes.

“And lastly, but most importantly,” Swift added, “I want to thank and dedicate this award to one person, without whom this wouldn’t be happening, and that person is the ultimate showgirl, Dolly Parton. Every single song that she wrote, her storytelling was so vivid and so rich. Listening to her songs, it’s like watching the best music video you have ever seen in your life, every single time you hear what she has written. Man, she handled this thing with such grace and joy and love and gratitude for the fact that she got to do this.”

“And everything that happened in her life or her career, she channeled back into love and gratitude and appreciation for her fans,” Swift continued. “I’m lucky I got to be one of them, and I will always be one of them. I love you all so very much, and I think we were all very lucky to share this planet with Dolly Parton for a time, and thank you for this amazing moment. I love you all.”

On Friday, Swift dropped the extended version of Showgirl, featuring four tracks. The single is “Patient Zero,” with a video co-starring Dakota Johnson and Colin Farrell that she debuted at the VMAs.

Swift recently received a Country Music Association Awards nomination for Single of the Year for her 2026 release “I Knew It, I Knew You,” her contribution to the Toy Story 5 soundtrack. The nod marked her first CMA nomination in four years. “LOOKS LIKE I HAVEN’T YEE’D MY LAST HAW THANK YOU CMA!!!!” she wrote on Instagram.

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