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)
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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.



With $97Mln Second Weekend, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Sets New High Mark for R-Rated Films

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds attend the premiere of "Deadpool and Wolverine" in New York City, New York, US, July 22, 2024. (Reuters)
Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds attend the premiere of "Deadpool and Wolverine" in New York City, New York, US, July 22, 2024. (Reuters)
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With $97Mln Second Weekend, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Sets New High Mark for R-Rated Films

Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds attend the premiere of "Deadpool and Wolverine" in New York City, New York, US, July 22, 2024. (Reuters)
Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds attend the premiere of "Deadpool and Wolverine" in New York City, New York, US, July 22, 2024. (Reuters)

After 10 days in theaters, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is already the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever, not accounting for inflation.

In its second weekend, the Marvel Studios blockbuster starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman continued to steamroll through movie theaters, collecting $97 million according to studio estimates Sunday. That raised its two-week total to $395.6 million, pushing it past the long-reigning top R-rated feature, “The Passion of the Christ,” which held that mark for 20 years with $370 million domestic.

Worldwide, the Shawn Levy-directed “Deadpool & Wolverine" has quickly amassed $824.1 million in ticket sales, a total that already surpasses the global hauls of the first two “Deadpool” films. The 2016 original grossed $782.6 million worldwide; the 2018 sequel collected $734.5 million.

The weekend’s primary challengers both struggled.

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, “Trap,” managed a modest opening of $15.6 million at 3,181 theaters for Warner Bros. The film, starring Josh Hartnett as a serial killer hunted by police at a pop concert, didn’t screen for critics before opening day and scored lower in reviews (48% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) than Shyamalan’s films typically do. Audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore.

With a budget of about $35 million, “Trap” didn’t need a huge opening, but may struggle to break even.

“This is a soft opening for an M. Night Shyamalan suspense crime thriller,” wrote David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment. “The writer/director’s movies out-earn other original thrillers by a wide margin, and that’s true here, but this start is not on the level of recent Shyamalan films.”

The live-action “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” adapted from the classic kids book, also didn’t make much of a mark in theaters. The Sony Pictures release debuted with $6 million. It, too, got dinged by critics (28% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), though audiences (an A- CinemaScore) liked it more.