Megan Thee Stallion is doing more than just performing this evening at the MTV VMAs; she’s hosting the whole show too. The rapper and fashion icon arrived on the red carpet early and started the show on a sartorial high note. Megan wore a black semi-sheer mermaid gown with a dramatic skirt. She accessorized with a big black ring.
Megan is up for seven VMAs this evening: Best Trending Video (“Mamushi,” featuring Yuki Chiba), Song of the Summer (her and GloRilla’s “Wanna Be”), Best Collaboration (“Wanna Be”), Best Hip-Hop Song (“BOA”), Best Direction (“BOA”), Best Visual Effects (“BOA”), and Best Art Direction (“BOA”).
Megan spoke to Billboard in an interview published last week about the difference—or lack thereof—between her onstage persona and real self. “I feel like Megan and Megan Thee Stallion are the same person,” she said. “When I’m Megan Thee Stallion, I’m having to wear armor. I definitely got to go onstage and get in that mode, but I’m still the same person. Just when I’m not in public, I can really decompress and slouch, and I could watch anime all I want. I can play with my puppies, I can talk on the phone with my cousin, I could be with my best friends in peace. I don’t have to worry about being too strong. I could just be me.”
She also reflected on this being her self-proclaimed selfish era. “I used to really care how I made a lot of people feel before how I made myself feel, before how they made me feel,” she said. “Somebody could make me feel like complete shit, but I still never wanted to do anything to make anybody else feel like shit. I still don’t want to make people feel like shit. At least now I know, ‘Let me put up my boundary.’ As soon as you make me feel a way that I don’t like, I just don’t want to deal with you anymore. You don’t got to fight evil with evil, but I don’t have to deal with this at all. I don’t have to do things to make other people smile. What am I going to do to make me smile? What you going to do to make me smile? Everything was about making other people smile and other people happy. Now I’m in a space where I want to be happy. I’m not going to take away [from] being happy so I can put other people’s life and happiness as a priority over mine.”
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.