The 2015 MTV Video Music Awards were held on August 30, 2015. The 32nd installment of the event was held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California, and hosted by Miley Cyrus. Taylor Swift led the nominations with a total of ten, followed by Ed Sheeran, who had six, bringing his total number of mentions to 13. Swift's "Wildest Dreams" music video premiered during the pre-show. Cyrus also announced and released her studio album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, right after her performance at the end of the show. During his acceptance speech, Kanye West announced that he would be running in the 2020 United States presidential election. Taylor Swift won the most awards with four, including Video of the Year and Best Female Video. The VMA trophies were redesigned by Jeremy Scott.
This 2015 edition was seen by 9.8 million people in the United States during its simulcast across ten Viacom-owned networks. However, the ceremony's airing on the flagship MTV network alone had one of the lowest audience in the ceremony's 31-year history (with the following year's ceremony being the lowest of all time). According to Nielsen, it logged 5.03 million viewers on MTV, 39% less than the previous year, while cumulative viewers drew 9.8 million with the nine other simulcasting networks. The lowest viewed edition since Nielson began tracking in 1994 was in 1996, with 5.07 million viewers. This broadcast, however, broke the "US Twitter record", being the most tweeted about non-sports program, with 21.4 million tweets delivered by 2.2 million people. It was also streamed live through the MTV app for authenticated users on mobile devices and television sets via iOS, Android and Chromecast. Through its website, viewers could also get to see un-aired audience shots and backstage coverage. mtvU aired a behind-the-scenes feed and MTV Hits went dark.
The nominations were announced on July 21, 2015 via Apple Music's Beats 1. Nominees for the social media-driven category, Song of Summer, were announced on August 18, 2015. Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar were tied with most nominations, 10. Ed Sheeran had 6, Nicki Minaj had 4.