Since its debut on cable systems in August 1981, MTV has been reflecting, changing, and
creating pop culture, tastes, and trends.
But while fortune favors the bold, MTV​'s brash, in-your-face content has also triggered
some controversial moments.
Here are the biggest scandals to ever hit MTV.
TRL striptease?
Anybody who was anybody in the early-2000s corporate music machine routinely stopped
by MTV's Total Request Live, but there was something off about Mariah Carey's spot on
the show in July 2001.
As host Carson Daly tried to go to commercial, Carey materialized on set, pushing an ice
cream cart while dressed in an oversized T-shirt adorned with the word "Loverboy," which was
the title of her latest single.
Daly, who looked pretty surprised by the whole ordeal, mentioned that Carey's appearance
was, quote, "unannounced."
The songstress then said she had a present for the TRL host: her shirt.
Carey proceeded to take off her top, revealing a tank top and hot pants to a confused Daly.
The singer then bizzaarly announced:
"See, every now and then somebody needs a little therapy."
"Yes, I understand that."
"And today is that moment for me."
"What's wrong?"
When the singer announced that the "ice cream truck" was full of goodies for the studio
audience, a seemingly vaguely panicked Daly finally got to cut to commercial.
According to ABC News, Carey was subsequently hospitalized for exhaustion.
In 2018, she revealed to People magazine that she'd actually been diagnosed with bipolar
disorder.
Bye-bye 'Bum Bum Song'
In 1999, MTV took a chance on Canadian import The Tom Green Show, centered on the star's
surreal and goofy style of confrontational comedy.
In the summer of 1999, the market could apparently bear a Tom Green novelty rap song and video:
"Lonely Swedish (The Bum Bum Song)."
The gist of the music video isn't exactly highbrow: Green names things and rubs his,
uh, "bum bum" on them.
Of course, Green encouraged fans to vote for the video on MTV's other pop culture phenomenon
of the moment, Total Request Live.
Before long, his track sailed past TRL's familiar bevy of boy bands, Britney Spears, and rap
rock to hit Number 1 on the countdown.
Even though this was a brilliant bit of MTV cross-promotion, the network eventually couldn't
abide.
In an interview with Joe Rogan, Green revealed the network called them up and asked a favor:
"'We want you to kind of play ball with us here.'
And we're like, 'Well, what's the deal?'
They said, 'Well, you know, we need you to go on the show on Friday and retire The Bum
Bum Song, take it off the countdown.'"
Why did that happen?
The following week's episodes of TRL had supposedly been taped in advance because host Carson
Daly would be out, so the staff allegedly just ranked the videos the way they'd been
going, and hadn't accounted for the "spoiler effect" of "Lonely Swedish."
Green claimed he "played ball" and retired the song, thus preserving the alleged TRL
fix.
Green was truly an early-aughts patriot.
Beavis and Butt-Head and fire
MTV scored huge in 1993 with Mike Judge's Beavis & Butt-Head, a crudely animated series
about two small-town metalheads who spend their time destroying property and making
fun of music videos.
In the words of Butt-Head, the show "ruled" youth culture for a while…until the troubled
Beavis' love of burning stuff almost brought down the whole thing.
In October 1993, 5-year-old Austin Messner set his bed on fire with a lighter.
The boy and his mother, Darcy Burke, escaped the blaze, but the boy's 2-year-old sister
unfortunately died in the incident.
Along with the girl's mother, local authorities placed the blame on Beavis & Butt-Head, specifically,
Beavis' pyromania.
Local Fire Chief Harold Sigler told the Associated Press,
"When you take a child in the formative years and you get these cartoon characters saying
it's fun to play with fire, this is going to stick in that kid's mind and it's going
to be with him for a long time."
MTV swiftly responded, cutting out all references to fire from completed episodes of Beavis
& Butt-Head and banning them from appearing in future installments.
It also eliminated the show's 7 p.m. weeknight airings, only showing the cartoon at 10:30
p.m., thereby cutting down on the possibility that young, impressionable viewers may be
watching.
He's gonna let her finish
The MTV Video Music Awards is the channel's excuse to put on a huge party celebrating
the year's biggest musical acts.
Viewers can count on at least one daring and very rock n' roll thing going down each year,
be it Madonna attempting to make a baby with the stage while singing "Like a Virgin" in
1984, or Michael Jackson awkwardly kissing his wife, Lisa Marie Presley, in 1995.
But one moment will outlive them all, the one that demonstrated that the VMAs don't
have the greatest security detail.
At the 2009 ceremony, Taylor Swift won best female video for "You Belong With Me" over
Beyoncé's "Single Ladies."
Swift took to the stage to deliver her acceptance speech, only to fall victim to the force of
nature that is rapper Kanye West.
Rather than act like a normal person and post an all-caps Twitter rant declaring his displeasure
with the results, the rapper rushed the stage to express himself, declaring:
"Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish…but Beyoncé had one of the
best videos of all time!"
West's outburst was met with audible boos, stunned silence from Swift, and Beyoncé later
gave the young starlet the chance to finish her acceptance speech when she invited Swift
onstage after winning Video of the Year.
The rapper indirectly apologized a couple of days later on The Jay Leno Show:
"But I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I'm gonna, you know,
make it through the rest of this life.
How I'm gonna improve."
Still, the two superstars have feuded off and on for years.
Kanye calls the VMAs rigged
After his behavior at the 2009 Video Music Awards, it's surprising that MTV allowed Kanye
West anywhere near the ceremony ever again.
But he's a fixture at the show, and in 2016, he hit the stage as a presenter, debuted his
video for "Fade," and received two nominations, the music video for his new song "Famous"
was up for best male video, as well as video of the year.
West lost in both categories, to Calvin Harris and Rihanna's "This Is What You Came For"
and Beyoncé's "Formation," respectively.
You'd think West would be pleased Beyoncé won a VMA, but not this time.
A couple months after the ceremony, West performed in Sacramento, California in a show that ended
prematurely after West engaged in what The Wrap called "a manic onstage rant" that lasted
for 15 minutes.
Among his many thoughts: He claimed that the VMAs were rigged, and that he knew in advance
that "Formation" beat both "Famous" and Drake's "Hotline Bling."
The rapper revealed the powers that be had let him know the results ahead of time so
he, quote, "wouldn't run onstage."
West also dropped another potential bombshell aimed directly at Queen Bey, saying:
"Beyoncé, I was hurt because I heard that you said you wouldn't perform unless you won
video of the year over me and over 'Hotline Bling.'"
That's a big deal if it's true.
Key word: if.
Going Buckwild before airtime
Buckwild produced almost as many controversies as it did episodes.
Something of a rural version of Jersey Shore, Buckwild followed the lives of some TV-ready
young people in West Virginia as they did stuff like drink in the woods, throw a pool
party in a dump truck, and hunt squirrels.
Before the show debuted, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin said the show:
"...plays to ugly, inaccurate stereotypes about the people of West Virginia."
The West Virginia Film Office even denied MTV a lucrative tax credit to produce the
show in the state, because it found the series, quote, "significantly derogatory."
Nevertheless, MTV aired the series in early 2013.
A few days after the season finale aired, police arrested cast member Salwa Amin at
a friend's house in West Virginia when, according to TMZ, authorities discovered heroin and
unauthorized oxycodone.
Charged with two counts of drug possession, Amin was arrested again after a court-ordered
urine test delivered positive results for morphine and oxycodone.
Unfortunately, it only gets worse from here.
On April 2, 2013, Buckwild's Shain Gandee was found dead in his Ford Bronco, stranded
in a mud pit in remote West Virginia.
The car had reportedly gotten stuck with its tailpipe submerged under mud, leading to a
fatal buildup of carbon monoxide in the vehicle.
Eight days after Gandee's death, an MTV rep told TMZ that Buckwild was done.
Callous response to alleged assault
In 2011, Real World: Chicago, and Road Rules Challenge star Tonya Cooley filed a lawsuit
against Bunim/Murray Productions, MTV, and other parties on horrifying grounds, alleging
that she'd suffered repeated abuse during her time filming Road Rules Challenge:
The Ruins in Thailand, including an assault while she was unconscious.
MTV's corporate parent, Viacom, responded to the charges by claiming that Cooley was
responsible for the negative outcomes she experienced.
Viacom's statement read:
"Plaintiff failed to avoid the injuries of which she complains.
For example, while she was a contestant on The Ruins, Plaintiff was frequently intoxicated
(to an extent far greater than other contestants), rowdy, combative, flirtatious and on multiple
occasions intentionally exposed her bare breasts and genitalia to other contestants."
Oof.
The parties ultimately settled the case out of court.
Uncomfortable in its 'Skins'
MTV's programming constantly evolves to attempt to remain in line with the hip young kids.
in the early '90s, The Real World depicted disaffected Generation X-ers, and in the late
'90s, TRL aired a constant stream of boy band videos.
The network gives the masses what they wanted.
In 2011, the network wanted to show "how teens live now" with Skins, a
soap about precocious high schoolers making salacious and dangerous life choices.
It seemed like MTV would have a hit on its hands, in part because Skins was based on
a popular British series of the same name.
America didn't much care for Skins.
MTV launched its most costly ad campaign to date, and it paid off initially.
The debut episode landed some of the best ratings for a new show that the network had
seen.
However, less than half of those 3.26 million viewers liked what they saw enough to tune
in for Episode 2.
MTV faced a far larger problem in that it couldn't keep or attract advertisers for Skins.
After the media watchdog group Parents Television Council labeled the show, quote, "the most
dangerous show for children that we have ever seen," a number of huge companies swore off
buying ad space on the series, including Taco Bell, Schick, L'Oreal, and General Motors.
After just one season, MTV canceled Skins for good.
Self-censor if you're nasty
Millions of Americans were apparently scandalized in February 2004, when they saw part of a
woman's breast for part of a second.
While performing at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, Justin Timberlake tore off
part of Janet Jackson's clothing, revealing the singer's breast, at least what wasn't
covered by a nipple ornament.
It became history's most notorious "wardrobe malfunction," and because MTV produced that
halftime show, the network apologized in a statement, saying:
"The tearing of Janet Jackson's costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional,
and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance."
Then, the apology turned into self-punishment.
About a week after the Super Bowl, MTV identified six popular music videos that it felt contained
content of an edgy nature and consigned them to late-night play only.
An MTV spokesperson told Reuters:
"We always take into account what the cultural environment is on an ongoing basis.
Given the particular sensitivity in the culture right now, we're erring on the side of caution
for the immediate future."
Among those clips deemed too risqué: Britney Spears' "Toxic," which features some
dancing and skimpy costumes, and Incubus' "Megalomaniac," a political screed with a
video that features Adolf Hitler.
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