BTS Win Three 2026 MTV VMAs, Including Song of the Year for 'SWIM'

What happened

BTS won three awards at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards (MTV VMAs). They took Song of the Year and Best K-pop for ‘SWIM’, the title track of the fifth full-length album ARIRANG, and added Best Group, winning all three categories they were nominated in. The VMAs, which began in 1984, are an awards show centred on music videos and are hosted by MTV every year. The Korea Economic Daily wrote that the VMAs are counted among the four major US popular-music awards, alongside the Grammy Awards, the Billboard Music Awards and the American Music Awards (AMAs).

When and where

The ceremony was held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on 27 September 2026 (local time). BTS could not attend because of their world tour schedule. On 28 September the members thanked their fandom ARMY for its unchanging love and support through their agency BIGHIT MUSIC, saying: “ARIRANG is an album that feels like a new beginning for us, which makes this award all the more meaningful.” They added: “Going forward, the seven of us will keep showing you good music and good stages together.”

Why it matters

This is the first time BTS have won Song of the Year. Ilgan Sports wrote that BTS were nominated in the category in 2021 for ‘Dynamite’, the first Korean act to be, but did not win then. Soompi and Billboard reported that BTS are the first K-pop group to win Song of the Year. Ilgan Sports described the winning song, ‘SWIM’, as a song about not stopping in the waves of life and swimming on.

According to The Korea Economic Daily, Best Group is their fifth win after four in a row from 2019 to 2022, and Best K-pop their fourth after three in a row from 2019 to 2021. Ilgan Sports wrote that with the fifth Best Group trophy BTS set the record for the most wins in the category, and Billboard also reported that the win extended BTS’s record in the category.

What you need to know

• The three categories are Song of the Year, Best K-pop and Best Group, and the first two were won for ‘SWIM’.
• The members did not attend, and their message came through BIGHIT MUSIC on 28 September. They credited winning an award as big as Song of the Year with ‘SWIM’ to everyone who has loved their music.
• When it was released in March, ‘SWIM’ reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the UK Official Singles Chart, and held number one on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs Global for 25 consecutive days.
• Billboard reported on 29 September that j-hope posted a thank-you note to ARMY on Weverse. In the message as the outlet translated it, j-hope said he had heard the news of a big award and that it was all thanks to ARMY, and wrote that this year feels even more precious because it was a meaningful year in which BTS came back and spent time with ARMY. He said he would wrap the year up well until the very end, and teased that he would show fans many things at the upcoming South American shows.
• Ilgan Sports reported that the South American leg of the world tour begins in Bogotá, Colombia, on 2 October and continues through Lima in Peru, Santiago in Chile, Buenos Aires in Argentina and São Paulo in Brazil, 14 shows in five cities.