14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like MTV did learn something from last year's debacle featuring Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke and decided to play it safe in 2014. Reports are coming in that the network actually censored Nicki Minaj's stage performance in order to abide to the TV-14 rating the show was given, as opposed to last year when it easily fell in the Mature category.
Sources deep inside the production process of the show revealed to Page Six that Minaj actually fought hard with the network to get the mature rating in order to be able to give a convincing performance of her raunchy song “Anaconda” on stage, but the network's execs wouldn't budge.
Anyone who has seen the video of the song can tell you it's not fit for young audiences, especially the part where she gives a very explicit lap dance to rapper Drake. It was believed that Nicki was going to bring this precise moment on stage during the live broadcast, so parents were terrified of what their children were going to see on TV.
But Melissa Henson from the Parents Television Council admitted that “it wasn't as racy as we were anticipating. What we were expecting to see was that was in the video – a guy up on stage and her performing lap dances.”
She also noted that “Her costume was less revealing during the VMAs than it was in the music video. The elements were there, but the most offensive content was edited out. Whether Nicki Minaj had anything to do with that or MTV or network standards and practices, I don’t know, but we were relieved to see that it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.”
Minaj is also reported to have faked a wardrobe malfunction on stage just to get even more attention, but try as she might, she couldn't get her coveted mature rating. The MTV people censored her performance by filming it from specific camera angles and mostly over the waist, cutting down on the controversy factor.
MTV is still receiving complaints for the 2013 Miley Cyrus performance at the VMAs so they had plenty of reasons to be careful this time around. Right before the 2014 VMAs, they hinted that the show was going to be just as controversial, probably hoping to get even more viewers to tune in, but it was definitely safer this time around.
Heck, even Miley helped by bringing in a homeless young man to the awards and spreading awareness about this problem in the United States. Last year she was fondling Robin Thicke on stage with a foam finger and simulating intercourse with teddy bears and this year she turned into a humanitarian. That's quite a change.