Taylor Swift Wins Top Trophy at American Music Awards

Taylor Swift accepts the Artist of the Year award onstage during the 2022 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images via AFP)
Taylor Swift accepts the Artist of the Year award onstage during the 2022 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images via AFP)
TT

Taylor Swift Wins Top Trophy at American Music Awards

Taylor Swift accepts the Artist of the Year award onstage during the 2022 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images via AFP)
Taylor Swift accepts the Artist of the Year award onstage during the 2022 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty Images via AFP)

Pop superstar Taylor Swift won the most prestigious honor on Sunday at the American Music Awards when she was named artist of the year at the world's largest fan-voted ceremony.

The "Anti-Hero" singer thanked voters for supporting her after releasing four original albums and two re-recordings in the last three years.

"I cannot express how unbelievable it is to me that I still do this and that you still care," she said on stage at the awards show in Los Angeles.

Earlier, Swift's re-recording of her 2012 record "Red" took the trophy for favorite pop album. The 32-year-old singer has been making new versions of albums from her past after a dispute with her former record label.

"I cannot tell you how much my re-recorded albums mean to me, but I never expected or assumed they'd mean anything to you," she said.

Swift did not mention last week's controversy over Ticketmaster's sales for her upcoming tour, which were filled with glitches and prompted the company to apologize to her.

In the artist of the year category, Swift triumphed over formidable names including Beyonce, Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Drake, Adele and Bad Bunny.

Singer Pink opened the awards show dancing and singing on roller skates to her upbeat song "Never Gonna Not Dance Again."

Comedian and host Wayne Brady rapped in his monologue. "Ain’t nobody getting slapped tonight," Brady joked, referencing Will Smith's infamous attack on Chris Rock at the Oscars.

Dove Cameron, a former Disney Channel actress who reached the Billboard charts this year with the pop single "Boyfriend," earned the first trophy of the night with her best new artist win.

Machine Gun Kelly, wearing a purple suit with long silver spikes, was named favorite rock artist.



Britney Biopic in Works as Universal Buys Memoir Rights

US pop star Britney Spears. (Reuters)
US pop star Britney Spears. (Reuters)
TT

Britney Biopic in Works as Universal Buys Memoir Rights

US pop star Britney Spears. (Reuters)
US pop star Britney Spears. (Reuters)

A Britney Spears biopic is in development after Universal Pictures bought movie rights to the pop star's best-selling memoir, the Hollywood studio announced Thursday.
"Crazy Rich Asians" director Jon Chu is attached to develop and direct the film, based on Spears's recent autobiographical book "The Woman In Me," the company said in a statement to AFP.
Universal won a "highly competitive auction" for the film adaptation rights, with "La La Land" producer Marc Platt due to oversee the project, it said.
"Excited to share with my fans that I've been working on a secret project with #MarcPlatt. He's always made my favorite movies," Spears herself posted on social media Thursday.
"Stay tuned," she told fans.
"The Woman In Me" laid bare the troubled singer's journey from child star to global pop phenomenon, as well as her subsequent high-profile public breakdown and legal battles with her father.
Full of criticism of her controlling family and an industry that mercilessly devours its talent, the book sold over 2.5 million copies in the United States alone following its publication last October.
Spears's phenomenal early music success with late 1990s hits like "...Baby One More Time" coincided with an aggressive paparazzi culture that delighted in capturing her partying alongside hell-raisers like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
In the book, Spears revealed that Justin Timberlake urged her to have an abortion after she became pregnant during their relationship.
And she shared details of her brief but intense affair with Irish actor and Oscar nominee Colin Farrell, which she called "a two-week brawl."
Following Spears's public breakdown, she was placed under the conservatorship of her father Jamie Spears, who controlled her money and her personal life, even as she continued to perform high-profile concerts.
The conservatorship was dissolved by a Los Angeles court in 2021, after a groundswell of public support to "Free Britney."
Her father has always insisted that he had the best interests of his daughter at heart and was seeking to protect her from exploitation.
No release date has been set for the Britney film.
Universal has previously released musical biopics about hip-hop group N.W.A ("Straight Outta Compton") and rapper Eminem ("8 Mile.")
Chu is also directing Universal's big-budget, two-part movie adaptation of the musical "Wicked," with the first film out in November.