--- title: Katy Perry Mentioned Taylor Swift at the MTV VMAs 2017 description: Perry, the MTV VMAs host, made a cheeky reference to Swift during one of her introductions at the evening's awards show. canonical: https://time.com/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-28T04:20:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-06-24T06:56:42.884Z og:title: Here's How Katy Perry Summed Up the New Taylor Swift og:description: Perry made a cheeky reference to Swift at the VMAs og:url: https://time.com/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebb54ec0514fd1b9/6988db6b4ee262659030ebff/mtv-vmas-2017-91.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: MTV-VMAS-2017 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's How Katy Perry Summed Up the New Taylor Swift twitter:description: Perry made a cheeky reference to Swift at the VMAs twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebb54ec0514fd1b9/6988db6b4ee262659030ebff/mtv-vmas-2017-91.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's How Katy Perry Summed Up the New Taylor Swift at the VMAs > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=20ef8500-e7c8-410a-a716-48c69e7b5a7a&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: This Video Is No Longer Available [Watch (HLS stream): This Video Is No Longer Available](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fKodeUO6.m3u8) (0:10)  _Published 2026-06-23. Perry, the MTV VMAs host, made a cheeky reference to Swift during one of her introductions at the evening's awards show._  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 28, 2017 4:20 AM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 28, 2017 4:20 AM UTC Taylor Swift may not have showed up at Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards in the flesh, but her presence certainly was felt. First, she [dropped her new music video](http://time.com/4917782/taylor-swift-look-what-you-made-me-do-video/) for “Look What You Made Me Do” during the live broadcast. And then, the evening’s host and her yaerslong [pop rival](http://time.com/4914066/taylor-swift-katy-perry-feud-timeline/) Katy Perry made a cheeky reference to Swift during one of her short monologues. Dressed as Daenerys Targaryen from [_Game of Thrones_](http://time.com/4915000/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-parents-rhaegar-targaryen-lyanna-stark/), Perry gave a quick recap of what had gone down at the awards show so far for viewers just tuning in from watching the season finale of _Thrones_ instead, which started midway through the VMAs broadcast. “Kendrick Lamar: on fire. Ed Sheeran’s friends: dead,” she recited. “I for real Skyped with an astronaut, Lorde did Lorde stuff, Pink made a car fly.” Ed Sheeran is known to be [a friend of Swift’s](http://time.com/4823872/taylor-swift-katy-perry-ed-sheeran/), of course. In her new music video, she appears first as a zombie rising from the grave, and refers to [herself as “dead”](http://time.com/4915667/funniest-taylor-swift-look-what-you-made-me-do-memes/) in an already-viral lyric from the song. So if that’s how Perry wanted to review Taylor’s new work, she has a point — although the fans may not be particularly pleased [with that recap. ](http://time.com/4917868/taylor-swift-video-reactions/) > [](https://twitter.com/CPacheco181/status/901995580611633152) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/"},"headline":"Here's How Katy Perry Summed Up the New Taylor Swift at the VMAs","datePublished":"2017-08-28T04:20:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-06-24T06:56:42.884Z","description":"Perry, the MTV VMAs host, made a cheeky reference to Swift during one of her introductions at the evening's awards show.","url":"https://time.com/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","Katy Perry","Taylor Swift","MTV VMAs 2017"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebb54ec0514fd1b9/6988db6b4ee262659030ebff/mtv-vmas-2017-91.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/bltebb54ec0514fd1b9/6988db6b4ee262659030ebff/mtv-vmas-2017-91.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"MTV-VMAS-2017","caption":"2017 MTV Video Music Awards - Backstage","creditText":"John Shearer—Getty Images for MTV","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/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/","name":"Here's How Katy Perry Summed Up the New Taylor Swift at the VMAs"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"This Video Is No Longer Available","description":"Perry, the MTV VMAs host, made a cheeky reference to Swift during one of her introductions at the evening's awards show.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/fKodeUO6/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2026-06-23T15:00:44.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fKodeUO6.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/","duration":"PT10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4918025/katy-perry-on-taylor-swift-vmas/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```