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Madonna poked fun at Sabrina Carpenter at the 2026 VMAs.

Make no mistake: the two had a very successful collaboration that won them both an award this year.

But, on stage, the music legend revealed that their Best Collaboration award, and the song behind it, almost didn’t happen.

Essentially, Madonna’s calling out Sabrina and her team for being super late — and revealing the extra step that she took to make history.

Congratulations to Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter!

On Sunday, September 27, Madonna used her time on the VMAs stage to lovingly roast Sabrina Carpenter.

The two blonde superstars won Best Collaboration for their duet, “Bring Your Love.”

Madonna shared with the audience her memory of how the two talented icons came to work together.

“Everybody who knows me knows how impatient I am,” she admitted.

“And when five days passed, and I still didn’t get connected with Sabrina and didn’t hear back from her about whether she wanted to do a song with me,” Madonna shared, “five days, I DM’d her.”

“This is a true story,” Madonna shared.

“She answered me back, and… within weeks, we were in the studio together,” she recalled.

Madonna summarized the whole experience: “It was fabulous.”

So, too, was the song itself, which boasts over 66 million streams on Spotify alone, to say nothing of millions of other plays on much better music streaming apps and, you know, non-streaming listens.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

It was a big night for music — and especially for Madonna

Confessions 2 saw Madonna win Artist of the Year, defeating Sabrina Carpenter.

(She also beat Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars, and — to everyone’s relief — Morgan Wallen.)

With Confessions 2, Madonna also won Best Album.

She also won Best Choreography, Best Long Form Video, and Best Cinematography.

In the wise, out-of-context words of Kim Kardashian: “It’s what she deserves.”

Sunday was the first VMAs in 23 years for which Madonna performed to open the Awards Show.

She dazzled the audience — both in person and at home — with “Bring Your Love” and “Danceteria.”

This was not only a big night for her, however.

Taylor Swift brought home an inaugural award for directing her own music videos.

She also became the most-awarded artist of all time with 33 VMAs over the course of her career. Before this past weekend, she and Beyoncé had been tied.