Gaga leads VMA nominees with 13, but Kanye looms

The Associated Press, Sunday, September 12, 2010, 7:32am (PDT)

Music's wildest party — on television at least — convenes Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles and the guest list couldn't be any more outrageous.

There's Lady Gaga, who will compete for top honors. She's nominated for 13 moonman trophies, setting a VMA record, and her nominations include two for video of the year — "Telephone," featuring Beyonce, and "Bad Romance."

Also on the invite list is Eminem, who is nominated eight times and is also up for video of the year for "Not Afraid." Then there's the ever-rowdy "Jersey Shore" gang, the ever-sassy Katy Perry, party girl Ke$ha, the cast of "Jackass" and Kim Kardashian.

And bad-girl comedian Chelsea Handler is the show's host.

But they might all be upstaged by Kanye West and Taylor Swift.

West is due to perform, but people aren't as interested in his performance as his potential antics. The rapper-producer has still not recovered from his actions at last year's VMAs in New York, when he took to the stage as Swift won the award for female video and declared it should have gone to Beyonce.

West endured intense backlash after that, despite an apology, and stepped away from the spotlight. He recounted it all last weekend in a Twitter rant, again apologizing to Swift and detailing the pain he endured.

West also said he has a song for her to sing, but Swift has other ideas: A person close to the singer says Swift will perform her own song about last year's incident on Sunday night's show, virtually assuring a continuation of the VMAs' trademark craziness.

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