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"It&amp;#039;s that time again - the biggest popstars on the planet have all converged upon Las Vegas for the Billboard Music Awards. With Tracy Morgan set to host and Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Bruno Mars and more set to appear, it&amp;#039;s sure to be an interesting night, to say the least. Who will take home a statue and what exciting surprises are in store? Join Digital Spy live from 8/7c to find out!  22:59Well, that&amp;#039;s it - we made it through another year. Did you have fun? Eh, me neither, really. But at least we can say we did it together, and that&amp;#039;s the most important thing, right? Ah well... Until 2014, au revoir!  22:55Prince puts on a killer performance and does some serious shredding on a guitar throughout. Also, he has an afro now, so there&amp;#039;s that. 22:54It&amp;#039;s just about quittin&amp;#039; time, but Janelle Monae and Erykah Badu come out to present Prince with the special &amp;#039;Billboard Icon Award&amp;#039;. Talk about an artist who deserves it. There&amp;#039;s no-one quite like Prince, and he&amp;#039;s still got it.  22:45Nicki&amp;#039;s gone from massively curly blonde hair to a long, sleek black wig and holy smokes, she&amp;#039;s actually rapping! Plus, it&amp;#039;s good to see Lil Wayne off the sizzurp long enough (and out of the hospital long enough, on a serious note) to join her for this performance. YMCMB for life, etc. Nicki Minaj is such a hot mess, but I find her so much more palatable when she&amp;#039;s actually rapping (reminds me of her mixtape days, when I was actually a fan). She gives Wayne a nice lap dance as part of the routine and I feel violated just watching it. &amp;quot;Dat ass,&amp;quot; as Lil Wayne remarks at the end of the song. 22:41She barely gets to give her speech - thanking the fans, proving how self-aware she is about her extremely emotional/silly album, etc, before Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne are on stage to perform.  22:39The award goes to Taylor Swift! Thank God it&amp;#039;s not Justin Bieber again, that&amp;#039;s all I have to say. 22:38Oh snap. Silence! A true queen is present. C\u00C3\u00A9line Dion is on stage to present the final award of the night (despite there being 20 minutes left of the broadcast and only like, seven awards being given out during the past THREE HOURS). It&amp;#039;s time for &amp;#039;Billboard Artist&amp;#039; of the Year and it&amp;#039;s between One Direction, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Maroon 5.  22:32Cee Lo Green is presenting the next award with - as Tracy so elegantly described it - &amp;quot;a woman who won a contest to present an award&amp;quot;. They&amp;#039;re giving out the &amp;#039;Milestone&amp;#039; award and she&amp;#039;s kind of a natural. It&amp;#039;s between Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift, and it goes to Justin Bieber, which makes me want to throw up in my mouth. As if this kid needs any reason to inflate his ego any more? And he&amp;#039;s also TERRIBLE. Ugh, get off.  He just stands there on stage, staring down the crowd and looking really smug with his arms crossed in front of him for a really long time while everyone applauds. Finally, he starts his speech by patting himself on the back, saying, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m 19 years old and I think I&amp;#039;m doing a pretty good job,&amp;quot; before going on about how everything should be about the music and he should be taken seriously as an artist and &amp;quot;all this other bull should not be spoken of&amp;quot;. What? What&amp;#039;s happening? &amp;quot;Jesus Christ&amp;quot; gets a shout out - he even takes his sunglasses off for the Lord - and I think it&amp;#039;s safe to say Justin Bieber just had a mini meltdown on live television. 22:25Jenny McCarthy is on hand to tell everyone not to vaccinate their kids introduce David Guetta, Ne-Yo and Akon for their performance and make uncomfortable comments about how DJs make her horny or something? I kinda don&amp;#039;t even want that one clarified.  22:16Just to set the record straight (and so the Beliebers don&amp;#039;t send me death threats), there are some bits of live singing in there... but they&amp;#039;re horrendous, so they&amp;#039;re kept to a bare minimum. Even will&amp;#039;s microphone seems to have the volume turned pretty far down. 22:14His speech is all about how he was just a little French boy who&amp;#039;s overcome the odds to bring EDM to the mainstream. Blah blah, whatever. Wiz Khalifa and one of the bros from LMFAO are on stage now to introduce will.i.am and Justin Bieber for their performance of whatever crap hashtag song they did together. Justin&amp;#039;s toooootally lip syncing and I still wanna destroy my eyes and ears.  22:13Oh snap, it&amp;#039;s Kelly Rowland and... Austin someone? Austin Mahone. Some teenager of some sort. Kelly looks fantastic. Air that &amp;#039;Dirty Laundry&amp;#039;, girl. This award is for &amp;#039;Top EDM Artist&amp;#039;, and it&amp;#039;s between David Guetta, Calvin Harris, Deadmau5, Skrillex and Swedish House Mafia. I think Calvin should get it on the sheer basis of 18 Months, but of course David Guetta gets it. OVERRATED. 22:06I&amp;#039;m not sure if this is some weird sponsorship thing, but now we&amp;#039;re being treated to a video feature about one of the guys from LMFAO spending #ODIV (that&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;one day in Vegas&amp;quot;, for the curious) and all the places he goes, from golf courses to fancy restaurants. It&amp;#039;s all a bit strange. 22:02Yo, Pitbull is absolutely LOADED now. We&amp;#039;re all aware of this, right? He does some crazy &amp;quot;rapping&amp;quot; in English and Spanish and this is starting to seem more like his song than J.Lo&amp;#039;s. But hey, there she is - red bodysuit and thigh-high boots. Get it, Jenny from the Block. I don&amp;#039;t like this song in the least, but I think Jennifer Lopez is great.  22:00Gabriel Mann and Stana Katic come on next to bring out Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull again so that they can perform HER single, &amp;#039;Live It Up&amp;#039;. 21:57Hilarious, the show is trying to pack so much utter s**t into a three hour broadcast tonight that he&amp;#039;s had to speed up the tempo of the song, probably cutting a full 60 seconds off the running time of the normally sung version. Ha!  21:57Chloe Moretz hits the stage next to introduce a performance by... Ed Sheeran (who is apparently her friend? what?). He&amp;#039;s doing &amp;#039;Lego House&amp;#039; which I love and aw, it&amp;#039;s so great to see little Ed getting success in America because he&amp;#039;s fantastic and I remember when + came out in the UK and I fell in love with him then. His music, pervs. 21:47He&amp;#039;s barely off the stage before Jennifer Morrison from Once Upon a Time comes out to introduce Miguel, who&amp;#039;s on stage to perform &amp;#039;Adorn&amp;#039; now. I like Miguel, but to be honest, I saw this video someone posted on tumblr of him literally simulating sex (including condom unwrapping/applying) with the air in front of him during a musical breakdown at one of his concerts. That&amp;#039;s too much for me, and not in an &amp;quot;Oooh, yeah!&amp;quot; way. It kinda freaked me out.  21:45He thanks the fans, his whole family and says it&amp;#039;s not just his award but one for his &amp;quot;fan group nation&amp;quot;. He seems a little flustered and I&amp;#039;m cracking up because the camera pans out to show Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift looking at him out of the corner of their eyes and totally gossiping. LOVE IT. 21:44Hey look, it&amp;#039;s Miley Cyrus! She&amp;#039;s presenting the award for &amp;#039;Male Artist&amp;#039; and she&amp;#039;s wearing a pretty hideous glittered, crocheted pantsuit. She makes it clear that she&amp;#039;s only there to promote her new single that&amp;#039;s coming out on June 3, and then goes on some rant about how &amp;quot;we love some men more than others&amp;quot;. Girl, save that Liam drama, aight? She gives the award to Justin Bieber. LAME. SO LAME. 21:38Somehow, there&amp;#039;s a bizarre breakdown and a performance of &amp;#039;Take On Me&amp;#039; suddenly and I have no idea what&amp;#039;s happening. It sounds like the actual dude from A-ha. And there he is! Weird.  21:36Hey, it&amp;#039;s Ke$ha and holy smokes, I almost didn&amp;#039;t recognise her - she looks rather classy and sophisticated. She&amp;#039;s there to introduce Pitbull and Christina Aguilera, who are on stage performing now. How is Pitbull a thing? I mean, he&amp;#039;s really good but also the weirdest candidate for pop star status ever, right? Christina&amp;#039;s got a mini-dress on - obviously trying to show off that weight loss the press won&amp;#039;t stop talking about. Don&amp;#039;t lose dem curves, Xtina. We loved you the way you were! Also, I want to be clear about how awful this &amp;#039;Feel This Moment&amp;#039; song actually is. 21:34Taylor&amp;#039;s got a lot of thanks to give to those who helped her make the album, but she gives most of the credit to the fans, who went out and bought over a million copies of Red in the first week alone. Lord. 21:33Continuing the weirdness, Emmy Rossum and Jason Derulo are announcing the &amp;#039;Top Billboard 200 Album&amp;#039; award. It&amp;#039;s between Taylor Swift for Red, One Direction for Up All Night, Adele for 21, Mumford &amp;amp; Sons for Babel and One Direction for Take Me Home. I don&amp;#039;t like that an artist can be nominated twice in the same category, but oh well. The award is going to Taylor Swift! 21:22Next out on stage, it&amp;#039;s Ariana Grande , who I&amp;#039;ve never heard of but that seems to be a running theme tonight. She&amp;#039;s introducing Justin Bieber, who&amp;#039;s performing a song that his fans chose on Twitter - &amp;#039;Take You&amp;#039;. Justin is only marginally better than Chris Brown on the reprehensibility scale, but he&amp;#039;s still awful. The vocals are super layered with the pre-recorded version since his live singing leaves quite a lot to be desired. He thinks he&amp;#039;s White Usher and is also making me wish I was born without eyes and ears so I didn&amp;#039;t have to partake in his nonsense.  21:19Madonna&amp;#039;s getting the award for &amp;#039;Top Touring Artist&amp;#039;, and she gets a standing ovation for it. When she comes out on stage, I gotta say, I almost don&amp;#039;t recognise her. She&amp;#039;s wearing dark shades indoors, for one, which... no. She&amp;#039;s mad that the microphone is set up to be too short for her and mentions this twice, much to everyone&amp;#039;s confusion and bewilderment.  It takes lots of villages to run her tour, she reveals and so she thanks some people that none of us have ever heard of. It&amp;#039;s all very indulgent and boring and I kind of just want to smack her for some reason, especially when she goes, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sorry, but I have the best dancers!&amp;quot; all cocky-like. 21:16Madonna is great and all - a total classic, for sure - but she needs to know that it&amp;#039;s time to sit the hell down. I would say the same to Paul McCartney (LONG past his welcome) and Mick Jagger (no thanks). At a certain point, enough is enough and it&amp;#039;s time to grow old gracefully and enjoy your millions in peace and quiet.  21:13Hey look, it&amp;#039;s will.i.am. God, we just can&amp;#039;t get rid of this guy. Even sending him to England hasn&amp;#039;t helped. Anyway, he&amp;#039;s introducing Madonna and giving a ton of figures about her sales, touring revenue, etc. Yawn. 21:12Uh, this song is awful, by the way. I just tuned into the chorus and she&amp;#039;s basically singing about how everyone she knows is &amp;quot;addicted&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;mary jane&amp;quot;. I can&amp;#039;t even get into the stupidity of these lyrics, but the fact that this is a ballad and it&amp;#039;s literally an anti-marijuana anthem is making my head spin... and making me crack up laughing.  21:09We&amp;#039;re back and there are two other country stars on stage now, but guess what? I don&amp;#039;t know who they are either, and Tracy was too busy shouting unintelligibly for me to figure it out. Kacey Musgraves is there to sing &amp;#039;Figure It Out&amp;#039;, though, and now she&amp;#039;s on stage so can we just move on? 21:00Selena Gomez is back, and she&amp;#039;s ready to introduce her real life BFF Taylor Swift, who&amp;#039;s doing &amp;#039;22&amp;#039; live for the first time. It&amp;#039;s a really bizarre set-up for this performance. We start in Taylor&amp;#039;s dressing room, where she picks up a microphone and then walks around backstage, jumping on tables, sliding on office chairs down the hallway and hopping through clothes racks. Oh, I get it, we&amp;#039;re young and carefree. Right.  20:58&amp;#039;Thrift Shop&amp;#039; comes out on top for this one, and I&amp;#039;m really glad! Macklemore jokingly thanks Goodwill and Value Village (thrift shops - get it?) before going on to appreciate their fans, management, etc. Nice lads, I like &amp;#039;em. 20:57This award&amp;#039;s for &amp;#039;Top Rap Song&amp;#039;. There&amp;#039;s a little Flo Rida (&amp;#039;Wild Ones&amp;#039;), Macklemore (&amp;#039;Thrift Shop&amp;#039;), Kanye West (&amp;#039;Mercy&amp;#039;) and Psy (&amp;#039;Gangnam Style&amp;#039;) and Flo Rida again (&amp;#039;Whistle&amp;#039;). Again, I have to ask, how in the hell is &amp;#039;Gangnam Style&amp;#039; a rap song? Second of all, how in the hell can anyone take &amp;#039;Whistle&amp;#039; seriously? 20:56Tracy&amp;#039;s back out in a sparkly jacket and he&amp;#039;s talking about Michael Jackson... this won&amp;#039;t end well. Oh, actually it ended fine because we&amp;#039;re already moving on. Kid Rock is coming out next. I know what you&amp;#039;re thinking - &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s still alive?&amp;quot; Well, yes, he is and he looks exactly the same as he did 10 years ago. He immediately makes a comment about giving it up for &amp;quot;people who lip sync under a pre-recorded track&amp;quot;. Ha! 20:45Hayden Panettiere comes out next to introduce Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who are across town performing at another venue... bit strange, but this whole night is, so let&amp;#039;s go with it. They&amp;#039;re performing &amp;#039;Thrift Shop&amp;#039; and this song is great, so yay. On a random side note, I thought Macklemore was Irish - as in, from Ireland - until like, last week. I don&amp;#039;t know why I thought this, I just did. Clearly it is untrue.  20:44Carly is honoured and thanks everyone at Interscope, as well as Justin Bieber and his manager Scooter Braun. Listen, I know Canadians have to stick together, but she is too thirsty for Justin. Calm down. 20:43Out on stage next, it&amp;#039;s Alyssa Milano and Avril Lavigne - what a strange pairing. They&amp;#039;re presenting the award for &amp;#039;Top Digital Song&amp;#039;, which is between &amp;#039;We Are Young&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Thrift Shop&amp;#039;, &amp;#039;Pay Phone&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;Call Me Maybe&amp;#039;. And hey, guess who wins! It&amp;#039;s Carly Rae Jepsen! 20:37There&amp;#039;s a dance breakdown in this performance where Chris does some roundhouse kicks before standing back up with the craziest murder eyes I&amp;#039;ve ever seen and then breaking into dance once again. Then he goes behind a shaded screen and shuffles like Michael Jackson until the performance FINALLY ends. I don&amp;#039;t know what I just witnessed, but that was horrendous.  20:36It just gets worse and worse. He&amp;#039;s spending most of the song with his mouth away from the mic and/or shouting inbetween long periods of silence as the track plays behind him. How is this so awful? 20:34Oh wait, it&amp;#039;s ANOTHER performance now... this one from Chris Brown. Ugh, gag me (and get him off this stage). He&amp;#039;s performing &amp;#039;Fine China&amp;#039; which I totally caught myself getting into when it was on BBC Radio 1 a while back without realising who was singing it. This live performance is a disaster - his voice is cracking ALL over the place. Like, terribly so. What is happening? He can&amp;#039;t hit any of the notes and at times his voice goes out completely, so he just starts shouting over the backing track. 20:33Psy is out now to give out an award, but wait! Here comes Tracy Morgan dressed as a demented banana version of Psy, and now they&amp;#039;re having a dance-off. Oh, brother. The gift bags must be amazing here for celebrities to even bother.  20:30We&amp;#039;re back again, and Carly Rae Jepsen is here now! You&amp;#039;d think it&amp;#039;d be time for another reward since we&amp;#039;re a half hour in and have only given out one, right? well, you&amp;#039;re wrong, because it&amp;#039;s time for another musical performance, this time by Icona Pop with &amp;#039;I Love It&amp;#039;. 20:24Time for another ad break, so feel free to go get a snack. I&amp;#039;m working with a turkey sandwich on cheese focaccia. Jealous? 20:20Next out on stage is a woman I have never seen before in my life, and admittedly I missed her, but she sounds country and she&amp;#039;s introducing The Band Perry, so let&amp;#039;s all move on. Two music performances back to back - groundbreaking stuff, Billboard Awards. 20:17After an ad break, we&amp;#039;re back with Selena Gomez, who&amp;#039;s performing her latest single &amp;#039;Come and Get It&amp;#039;. She&amp;#039;s back in bindi and Bollywood garb - is that just going to be this song&amp;#039;s schtick, then? I mean, I get it - the beat sounds Bollywood inspired... but really? Do you think Justin Bieber&amp;#039;s backstage being like, &amp;quot;Shoulda never let her go!!!&amp;quot; and kicking himself? Or maybe he&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Ugh, my girlfriend&amp;#039;s so hot!&amp;quot; because we all know they&amp;#039;re really back together?  20:11Nicki has her hype man escort her to the stage, because why not? She goes on about how she didn&amp;#039;t expect to win and how great her fans are - you know, standard award speech stuff. She&amp;#039;s got some great hair going on tonight, and hilariously, the camera pans to Jason Derulo in the audience at one point and he&amp;#039;s looking on with stars in his eyes. Awkward! 20:10It&amp;#039;s between Flo Rida, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Psy (WHAT?) or Pitbull (NOT A RAPPER). I&amp;#039;d give it to Drake, but Billboard gives it to Nicki Minaj, so whatever. 20:09Time for the first award. Oh look, it&amp;#039;s Shania Twain! She&amp;#039;s performing the award for &amp;#039;Top Rap Artist&amp;#039;, because hey, why not? 20:08Hey, here comes Tracy Morgan. Who in the hell asked him to host? What a bizarre choice. Among his &amp;quot;jokes&amp;quot; are saying that Wayne Newton is his father and claiming that he worked with Siegfried (of Siegfried &amp;amp; Roy) with the tigers. It&amp;#039;s going to be a long night.  20:01Well, here we are - time to get started! We&amp;#039;re opening up with a performance for Bruno Mars. I really cannot stand him, and yet sometimes his songs are so good. What is this black magic? Also, what are these outfits? Bruno and his background band/dancers are doing a &amp;#039;70s theme complete with bellbottoms and disco balls. Make it stop! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/news/a482757/2013-billboard-music-awards-live-blog/>