--- title: Beyoncé Slays the VMAs with a Live "Lemonade" Performance description: The singer and songwriter stole the show with a 16-minute performance of hits from her "Lemonade" album at Sunday night's VMAs. canonical: https://time.com/4470188/vmas-2016-beyonce-lemonade-live/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-29T03:29:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:35:57.234Z og:title: Beyoncé Slays the VMAs with a Live "Lemonade" Performance og:description: The singer stole the show with a 16-minute performance of hits from her album. og:url: https://time.com/4470188/vmas-2016-beyonce-lemonade-live/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8de9a174b1932eca/6988a3ea0b72e366356eacd7/beyonce-vmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3600 og:image:height: 2025 og:image:alt: 2016 MTV Video Music Awards - Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Beyoncé Slays the VMAs with a Live "Lemonade" Performance twitter:description: The singer stole the show with a 16-minute performance of hits from her album. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8de9a174b1932eca/6988a3ea0b72e366356eacd7/beyonce-vmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Beyoncé Slay the VMAs with a Live _Lemonade_ Performance > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 29, 2016 3:29 AM UTC  NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 28: Beyonce attends the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards at Madison Square Garden on August 28, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/FilmMagic) NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 28: Beyonce attends the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards at Madison Square Garden on August 28, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/FilmMagic) Nicholas Hunt—FilmMagic  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 29, 2016 3:29 AM UTC When Beyoncé came to MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday night, [she came to slay](http://time.com/4470038/vma-2016-mtv-beyonce-blue-ivy/). In an extensive live performance—16 full minutes—the Queen herself sang and danced to a seamless medley of five of her [songs from ](http://time.com/4305890/beyonce-lemonade-album-review/?iid=sr-link3)_Lemonade,_ interspersed with excerpts of powerful poetry from Warsan Shire. The flawless performance earned her a standing ovation from the crowd, and hosts Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele were left speechless. Starting off slow with an emotional rendition of “Pray You Catch Me,” a radiant Beyoncé owned the stage in a voluminous white cape—and then segued into an energetic version of “Hold Up,” accompanied by her troupe of dancers. They ran through “Sorry” and “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” saving “Formation” to finish it off, Beyoncé standing and smiling triumphantly in the center of a circle of backup dancers lying on the ground. As expected, the crowd—[and the internet](https://twitter.com/search?q=beyonce&src=typd)—went wild for her unexpected performance. The comedians Key and Peele, who have been anchoring the awards show as chatty Twitter personalities, said they were both, for all intents and purposes, deceased. “I’d give you a eulogy, but I’m also dead,” Key apologized to Peele. Just a few minutes later, Beyoncé then won the award for “Best Female Video,” presented to her by four of the Final Five Olympic gymnasts: Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4470188/vmas-2016-beyonce-lemonade-live/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4470188/vmas-2016-beyonce-lemonade-live/"},"headline":"Watch Beyoncé Slay the VMAs with a Live Lemonade Performance","datePublished":"2016-08-29T03:29:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:35:57.234Z","description":"Bow down","url":"https://time.com/4470188/vmas-2016-beyonce-lemonade-live/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Entertainment","Music","VMAs 2016"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8de9a174b1932eca/6988a3ea0b72e366356eacd7/beyonce-vmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8de9a174b1932eca/6988a3ea0b72e366356eacd7/beyonce-vmas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"2016 MTV Video Music Awards - Arrivals","caption":"2016 MTV Video Music Awards - Arrivals","creditText":"Nicholas Hunt—FilmMagic","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4470188/vmas-2016-beyonce-lemonade-live/","name":"Watch Beyoncé Slay the VMAs with a Live Lemonade Performance"}}]}] ```