2025 American Music Awards: Every Viral Moment & Best Memes of the Night

On Memorial Day Monday, the 2025 American Music Awards kicked off live from the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, marking the awards show's first appearance since the 2022 AMAs and its first ever on CBS.

It's been even longer since Jennifer Lopez helmed the broadcast, with the multi-hyphenate set to host for the first time since 2015. She has, of course, long been a staple on the show as a performer and multiple winner.

For Monday's show, Lopez kicked off the night with a rousing performance of "Dance Again." Also performing were ICON Award recipient Janet Jackson and lifetime achievement recipient Rod Stewart. Additional performers include Benson Boone, Reneé Rapp, Gloria Estefan, Lainey Wilson, Blake Shelton, and Gwen Stefani.

Among the stars up this year for AMAs -- which are voted entirely by the fans -- are Kendrick Lamar, who has a leading 10 nominations, Post Malone, who is nominated in eight categories, as well as Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, and Shaboozey, who are all close behind with seven nods.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift -- who has the most wins in AMAs history at 40 -- is looking to extend her record with six nominations tonight, including Artist of the Year, Favorite Touring Artist, and Album of the Year for The Tortured Poets Department.

Perhaps her most impressive feat on the night was absolutely dominating the online conversation without saying a word, performing, or even appearing on the show .... no matter what was happening,

Swift dominated the conversation as fans anticipated an appearance and, perhaps more importantly to the Swifties, an announcement. The singer is well known for using award shows to announce albums, tours, and the like. She drops hints like she drops hits, and fans have already been seeing 26 (todays' date) everywhere.

It's a testament to her power as a pop star right now that she can be the dominant viral moment of the night for an event she wasn't even at!

Read on to check out all of the must-see viral moments -- and Taylor obsession!

Just like she did 10 years ago, J.Lo kicked off the show with a short vocal performance before breaking into a lengthy dance to a medley of the year's biggest hits. There was more than one technical snafu along the way, both involving lifts. She missed an extended hand entirely early on, and then had an awkward off-center flip.

We get it, it's live television, and full props to Lopez for being able to create a whole moment based on how she first made it big -- as a dancer. This wasn't about celebrating J.Lo as a musician, but about J.Lo the dancer celebrating everyone else's music.

And we all wish we can still move like that for as many years as she's been doing this. But there were plenty of people kind of wishing she hadn't done any of this, confused by her kicking off the show by celebrating all the other musicians.

In 2015, she made a comment that the night was about everyone's music and not her, setting up that seven-minute performance. We got no such explanation this time, so you basically had to remember what she said a decade ago for this choice to make sense.

Many online are still scratching their heads trying to make sense of it. And if they weren't ready for this dance montage, they certainly weren't ready for closeups of Lopez smacking lips with multiple dancers of multiple genders.

Even Tiffany Haddish, who was the first presenter after this opener, had something to say about it. "How cool is it to have total superstar like J.Lo hosting the AMAs? Or as I call it, the JMAs," she quipped.

"Our host has just danced to 23 hits in 6 minutes," she continued. "Just from that opening number alone, Jenny from the block has got all her steps in for the day and got all her kisses in. Save some dancers for me, damn! You ain’t the only one out here single."

And then there were those online who were still trying to figure out if Taylor Swift was going to be there --- and then suddenly here's J.Lo going off. And completely exhausting herself, based on the heavy breathing when she came out to talk.

As fans spent the whole night obsessing more about Taylor Swift -- is she there, is she announcing Reputation (Taylor's Edition) -- than what was happening on the screen, one moment from the aforementioned appearance by Tiffany Haddish quickly stood out.

When quipping about J.Lo hitting 23 tracks in six minutes, Haddish appeared to slip up and say 26 -- or almost say it. The 26th, of course, is the date of the AMAs themselves, with many fans expecting an announcement tonight (especially after a re-recorded track debuted on the latest episode of The Handmaid's Tale).

Whether it was an intentional slip, or part of Swift's well-known love of teasing and dropping hints and clues everywhere in the world for all of her big announcements remained to be seen, but the Swifities were all over social media scrutinizing every moment, syllable, and slip-up.

And it was all for nought, as the show ended without an appearance, a win, or an announcement.

Shaboozey went viral for his reaction face as fellow presenter Megan Maroney said the Carter family "basically invented country music" as they announced the winner for favorite country duo or group. As Maroney read off the teleprompter, Shaboozey appeared to side-eye her before letting out a chuckle.

The Carter family -- including P. Carter, Sara Carter and Maybelle Carter -- has been dubbed the "The First Family of Country Music," per the Country Music Hall of Fame, with a career spanning 1927 to 1941.

While it's unknown why he let out the laugh, those on social media believe he took issue with the "invented country music" line, as even the Country Music Hall of Fame notes the influence of Black musicians on the family's style. The comment also comes at a time when Beyoncé made a statement about reclaiming the Black roots of the genre with her own album, Cowboy Carter.

On Tuesday, Shaboozey dropped some knowledge on his fans about the origins of country music in a series of tweets. "When you uncover the true history of country music, you find a story so powerful that it cannot be erased…," he wrote:

Many of his fans were even quicker on the draw, thanking the artist for calling out the comment, even if he did so in a subtle way.

If there's one thing we can all count on it's that if Benson Boone shows up to perform, he will do a flip. It's become as much a signature of the New Artist nominee as his mustache. So of course, social media appeared to just be waiting for it to happen.

To his credit, this was easily one of the most impressive flips seen across his multiple television appearances as he launched himself entirely down the steps without missing a beat or a note.

Oh, and did we mention there was quickly a throughline for the night. No matter what was happening on the stage, who was performing -- or making jokes, or presenting awards -- so many people online were still wondering the same thing...

"J.Lo, my dream is to play your mom in a movie one day," Nikki Glaser quipped as she took the stage to present the award for New Artist of the Year, which went to Gracie Abrams.

She said she was honored to present such an important award because "it exemplifies one of the most important qualities the industry looks for in an artist: newness."

"As someone who just turned 35 in March -- 2019, my warning to all of the nominees tonight is, do not age," she continued. "The industry hates that."

"But, luckily you all now have the secret recipe for not aging," she concluded, "Money."

She had to do all of that after getting totally dismissed and skipped over by Benson Boone during his performance, too, which did not go unnoticed!

Even that brief glimpse was enough to remind everyone why Glaser has become an awards show darling after her stellar hosting stint at the Golden Globes ... though not everyone is a fan.

It's hard to pull off longevity as a pop star, but it helps if you have crossover appeal, timeless music, and talent for days. Janet Jackson is this year's ICON Award recipient, and she proved why she's an icon with an epic medley performance of just a few of her smashes.

After J.Lo heaped praise on her for giving her a chance as a young dancer, Jackson came out and just owned the moment, the stage, and the night with an incredible vocal and even more incredible moves.

More than 40 years after "Young Love" became her first charting single, Jackson proved she is a timeless legend and an inspiration now to multiple generations of artists -- while proving she can keep up with every single one of them with her first televised performance in seven years.

Expressing how honored and grateful she was, Jackson said, "No disrespect in any way, but I don't consider myself an icon. My family, myself, our dream, it wasn't ever to be famous. We weren't raised like that. We always had a special love for music, dancing, and singing."

She credited hard work and dedication for their fame, calling her family's story a uniquely American one. "The one thing I hope for is that I've been an inspiration," she said," to artists to follow their dreams and succeed."

To the fans, she said, "Because of you and God I'm standing here." And those fans were lighting up social media with their praise of her as an artist, and the instantly iconic performance she just gave.

When they weren't talking about Taylor Swift, who wasn't there anyway, viewers on social media were talking about everyone else who wasn't there. Don't get us wrong, there were definitely some huge names present, but it felt more like a select few than a smorgasbord of talent.

For an awards show that's been absent for three years, you might have expected a hall filled with the best of music across all genres. Instead, we had what accounted more to a highlights real of some of the biggest and best.

All in all, after three years of anticipation about the show's return, fans aren't sure we really needed it, after all. Is this what we've been missing, they wondered?

Younger fans can appreciate some of the legends like Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, and Gloria Estefan, but they also need someone who can come out and serve to their generation. One of the biggest voices of now belongs to Reneé Rapp, and she took full advantage of her moment.

It's a daunting task for anyone to follow a living legend like Janet Jackson, but Rapp proved fearless in taking the stage and showing off her signature style, and the performance energy and live vocals that she hopes will propel her into four decades of success, herself.

If the online chatter is any indication, she's certainly got legions of fans right now who are ready and willing to ride with mother until the wheels fall off.

It wasn't Drake or Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator or Future. No, it was Eminem who took home Male Hip-Hop Artist, offering up a sincere video of appreciation because he (of course) wasn't there. Hopefully, he's not online, either, as fans have some thoughts about what many would consider an upset win.

They also took note of some of the surprised reactions happening live in the room to Em's win, including the looks on the faces of Nikki Glaser and Heidi Klum -- not-so-fresh off of getting dissed themselves by Benson Boone (see above). And then there's Kai Cenat, who was a whole reaction reel all by himself.

Yes, Eminem is an icon of the industry who's left an indelible stamp on hip-hop, but it's hard to look at those other four artists and think that he's evolving the game today the way they are. At least, that's what social media had to say -- among a lot of other comments.