Britney Spears accidentally “presented” a non-existent award to Michael Jackson at the 2002 MTV VMAs, and it’s truly a car crash if we ever saw one.

Flashback to when Britney Spears accidentally presented Michael Jackson with a non-existent award at the 2002 MTV VMAs.

It’s one of the most awkward awards show moments we completely forgot happened.

The MTV VMAs are coming up on Monday, and in honour of the annual ceremony we’re looking back to 2002 when the event happened to directly coincide with Michael Jackson’s 44th birthday.

Organisers invited pop princess Britney Spears onstage to spearhead the celebrations at New York’s Radio City Hall.

Now this was the king of pop we’re talking about. Everything had to be meticulously prepared for the occasion, and it almost was.

A leather-clad Spears hosting formalities, a lavish cake and a specially made birthday trophy took centre stage. But Spears’ introduction speech notes were perhaps overlooked in favour of the spectacle.

Wishing the artist a happy birthday, Spears dubbed him the “artist of the millennium” in passing.

Now Jackson – who was also clearly underprepared – thought this was some sort of lifetime achievement award he was being presented with. Unfortunately, the award didn’t and doesn’t exist.

The whole thing descended into utter anarchy when Jackson began his acceptance speech:

“When I was a little boy growing up in Indiana if someone told me as a musician I’d be getting the artist of the millennium award, I’d never have believed it,” Jackson began, before thanking God, his parents and countless others.

Michael Jackson accepting a non-existent award and Britney Spears awkwardly watching on after accidentally giving it to him is the best thing we forgot happened.
After initially blowing up in raucous applause, you could hear a pin drop in the audience when Jackson dropped the non-existent award in his Oscar-worthy spiel.

The crowd had to pretend to be moved as they maintained a standing ovation throughout.

Considering this was a room full of performers, they didn’t deliver a very convincing acting job.

Jennifer Lopez’s poker face doesn’t exist.
Briefly getting herself together after the cringe-worthy scenes, Spears pushed on to present Best Pop Video to No Doubt for Hey Baby while Jackson awkwardly maintained his position at the podium.

After the awards, a spokesperson for the channel said the moment was “a bit of a misunderstanding”.

“There is no such award as the Artist of the Millennium. I think some wires got crossed,” the spokesperson said.

The VMAs has hosted its fair share of wild moments over the years, from Kanye West stealing Taylor Swift’s microphone, to Spears open-mouth kissing Madonna mid-performance and Miley Cyrus’ infamous scantily clad performance involving a foam finger and Robin Thicke.

Here’s hoping for another car crash moment we can talk about for years to come when the VMAs kick off on MTV on Foxtel on Monday morning.