Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award

The Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award (also known as the Video Vanguard Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award) is a special award of merit given to recording artists and music video directors at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), a ceremony that was established in 1984. It is presented by MTV for "outstanding contributions" and "profound impact" on music video and popular culture. As the ceremony's special category, the trophy is a gold-plated "moonman" rather than the silver ones of the other VMA categories. The Beatles and director Richard Lester were honored with the Video Vanguard Award at the inaugural VMAs for "essentially inventing the music video." David Bowie also received the award at the same ceremony. Two years later, Madonna became the first female recipient.
In 1991, the award was renamed after Michael Jackson, who had previously won the 1988 trophy. Several authors documented that it was Jackson's lawyer John Branca who approached MTV with the idea, following Jackson's complaint of Madonna receiving MTV's Artist of the Decade award. Later that year, in MTV's 10th anniversary short film, Madonna responded, "I never asked you [MTV] to name an award after me, did I?" Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses, the 1992 honorees, also rejected the Jackson association in his acceptance speech, declaring "This has nothing to do with Michael Jackson. Thank you." The Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award was presented as the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2003 VMAs to Duran Duran and in 2006 as the Video Vanguard Award to director Hype Williams.
Following Jackson's death MTV stated his name was attached to the award due to "Jackson's groundbreaking work as a video artist." This naming again caused controversy after the release of "Leaving Neverland", a 2019 documentary featuring two men who alleged they had been abused by Jackson. Though they had lost a civil claim for millions of dollars against his estate in December 2017 (the judge having said "no rational trier of fact would believe it"), many organisations felt pressure to distance themselves from him. As in previous ceremonies, MTV did not explicitly display Jackson's name on its official website or on the television broadcast of the 2019 VMAs, although the year's recipient, Missy Elliott, did mention him in her speech and MTV issued documents keeping Jackson's name. In 2020, the award was not presented for the first time in eight years, with MTV instead honoring Lady Gaga with the inaugural "Tricon Award" representing achievement in three (or more) fields of entertainment.
Since its inception, the Video Vanguard Award has been awarded to 34 acts, with most of them being of American or British origin, except Russell Mulcahy (1985, Australian), Zbigniew Rybczyński (1986, Polish), U2 (2001, Irish) and Rihanna (2016, Barbadian). Out of all the winners, nine acts have also won the VMAs' biggest prize Video of the Year, including Peter Gabriel and Justin Timberlake, who both earned the two awards in the same night. Since 2013 recipients are invited to perform a medley of hits leading up to their acceptance speech.