Billboard Music Awards

Ariana Grande's 2018 has been a roller coaster ... and her emotions about it came spilling out as she accepted a Woman of the Year award.

Ariana was honored at Billboard's Women in Music Awards Thursday night and went from smiling and joking to fighting back tears. She was thrilled about reaching new heights in her career -- culminating with the success of her "Thank U, Next" music vid. The singer said that might have people thinking she's on top of the world.

She quickly reminded the crowd it's been one of the worst years of her life, outside of music, adding ... "As far as my personal life goes, I really have no idea what the f*** I'm doing."

Ariana was clearly referring to her recent breakup with Pete Davidson ... and losing her ex-boyfriend, Mac Miller, when he tragically died in September. Not to mention dealing with the aftermath of last year's bombing at her Manchester concert.

Watch the video ... she also threw a jab at herself for giving away "love and forgiveness" to men. She says that's gonna change.

Shawn Mendes just honored victims of gun violence with an emotional tribute at the Billboard Music Awards ... and with the help of students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

Shawn took the stage Sunday to perform his song "Youth," and was joined by singer Khalid ... who's featured on the song. Toward the end of the performance, multiple students from MSD's choir came out as well to help him finish out the tune.

We broke the story ... Shawn was aiming to send an uplifting message with the Parkland students' cameo -- especially in the wake of another school shooting this week that left 10 people dead.

Taylor Swift's shaking off critics who compare her to a "drunk turtle" -- and serving up big compliments to Post Malone for one of his hits.

The superstars came face-to-face backstage Sunday night at the Billboard Music Awards, and she immediately told Post she was a huge fan of his track, "Better Now." One part of it, in particular.

It looks like this was the first time they met because Post seemed surprised by Taylor's shout-out -- but, still ... cool backstage moment we rarely get to see.

Taylor's bubbly mood shows she's hardly reeling from the harsh, yet hilarious, criticism of her cover of Earth, Wind and Fire's "September."

She performed it during one of her recent concerts, and the co-writer of the track said Taylor sounded like a "a drunk turtle dozing under a sunflower after ingesting a bottle of Valium."

Shawn Mendes will perform his song "Youth" at the Billboard Music Awards as a tribute to those affected by gun violence, and he'll be joined on stage by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Show Choir.

Sources close to production tell TMZ Mendes and Khalid -- who is featured on the song -- wanted to shed light on the recent tragedies ... including the shooting at Santa Fe High School on Friday that left 10 dead.

"Youth" -- a song with a message about not allowing pain and tragedy to steal a kid's youth -- was released earlier this month after the massacre at MSD in Parkland, Florida which left 17 students and faculty members dead. Our sources say 12 members from the school's show choir will be featured in the performance.

We're told show producers were left scrambling Friday to also work in a tribute to Santa Fe which happened BBMA host Kelly Clarkson's home state of Texas. Production sources say rehearsals for the performance Saturday left those watching in tears.

Danielle Bregoli says she's already winning by being nominated by Billboard Music Awards as the Top Rap Female Artist with Cardi B and Nicki Minaj.

We got Danielle -- who goes by Bhad Bhabie in the music world -- on the heels of her being nominated for the prestigious award Tuesday along with arguably 2 of the biggest rappers in the game right now, and she was feeling pretty confident.

Danielle thinks she's the real winner at the end of the day -- the kid's just 15 years old, after all -- even though she concedes Cardi will probably walk away with the actual trophy. She explains why by taking multiple shots at Nicki ... and it ain't pretty, just petty.

Celine Dion's dressing room at the Billboard Music Awards was virtually a revolving door of star power ... celebs simply couldn't get enough.

Sources close to the award show tell TMZ Celine had MANY famous visitors throughout Sunday night's BBMAs -- and some couldn't even snag a little face time with the Queen.

We're told artists like Drake, Desiigner, Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani, and Vanessa Hudgens all stopped by to pay their respects to Celine, but mostly to gush about how much they loved her. Vanessa even shed tears over her performance, and Drizzy suggested getting her tatted on his ribs.

The one celeb left out was Jason Derulo. We're told he waited in her dressing room for 45 minutes while Celine was doing press, and passed the time chatting with her son, Rene Charles. Fortunately, he finally got to meet her.

Lots of people saw the performances at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards but check out what went down when the TV cameras were turned off.

The Cyrus brood was all over the place, Drake was rubbing elbows with everyone from Celine Dion to Desiigner and Nicki Minaj's attiou're is hard to look at and then look away.

Maybe not the most stirring show, but plenty of eye candy for sure.

Cher took home the "Icon" award at Sunday's Billboard Music Awards -- and to the surprise of viewers and show execs -- she didn't mention President Trump.

TMZ broke the story, award show producers went into Sunday holding their breath for what the singer -- who's been extremely critical of Trump -- may say during her acceptance speech. Lucky for ABC ... Cher held back on any vulgarity or any Trump remarks at all.

The 71-year-old took the stage to perform "Believe" and "If I Could Turn Back Time" before accepting the award from Gwen Stefani. Her speech was short and simple ... thanking friends, family and those who helped her in the industry.

Chaz Bono was also there to see mom accept the award.

Drake blew off the Billboard Music Awards, even though he was in Las Vegas ... and opted instead for a few rounds of golf with his friends.

Actually, it was golf with a tech spin -- at the brand new Topgolf in Vegas. We got this video of Drake and his pal, Jas Prince, teeing off Sunday night ... just a few blocks away from T-Mobile Arena ... where the award show was going down.

It's bizarre ... Drizzy was up for 11 BMAs ... and won for Top Rap Artist -- but for some reason he obviously wasn't feeling it.

On the other hand, both guys take decent strokes -- at least in this video. Y'know how golf goes.

Ciara chic is awesome ... a blend of a sexy physique, amazing threads and super expensive shoes, which is evident from the price tag.

We're guessing this isn't a humble brag ... just an oversight.

Oops.

Celine Dion had no clue her 15-year-old son would be presenting her ICON Award at the Billboard Music Awards ... even though producers talked about it right in front of her.

That's because they used a code word for Rene-Charles during rehearsals. Our production sources tell us Celine's son was referred to as "the package" all weekend. This was the first time he had been to one of his mother's award shows ... which added to the surprise for Celine, we're told.

For keeping the secret, the teenager scored an awesome reward -- a backstage pic with Rihanna.

Oh, and Mom was really happy. That was good too.

Madonna just paid respect to the Purple One in epic fashion ... bringing out Stevie Wonder for a duet of Prince's famous track.

With the Billboard Music Awards dripping in purple ... Madge and Stevie would've made him proud.

Kesha is prepping for a "statement performance" at the Billboard Music Awards and Dr. Luke will be the prime focus ... TMZ has learned.

Sources close to Kesha tell us the singer is gearing up for a marquee performance during the live May 22 show on ABC from Las Vegas. We're told she's planning to make direct references to her ongoing legal battle with Dr. Luke ... and might even include images of him.

She might have already given us a taste of what's to come after a not-so-subtle reference to the Sony producer when she covered Lady Gaga's "Til It Happens To You" last week.

Considering she's going to have a network TV audience ... it's a bold move, and one you know Dr. Luke will be watching closely.

Kanye West is pissed off at the Billboard Awards for heavily censoring his performance of "All Day" and "Black Skinhead" because he says they cut his audio even when he wasn't dropping profanities.

Kanye's mostly-silenced closing act was the talk of the award show -- but sources close to the rapper tell us producers knew when he was going to curse because he gave them the lyrics exactly as he performed them ... and yet they yanked his audio for up to 15 seconds at a time.

Our sources point out that during "Black Skinhead" a lot of clean lyrics were censored. For instance, the lines -- "My leather black jeans on" ... and "Middle America" were dropped. In other cases, it appears the censor had an itchy trigger finger, and pulled the audio several seconds early.

As we reported ... Kanye did not attend final rehearsal -- but we're told that's because doctors had him on vocal rest. He even needed a cortisone shot over the weekend. Still, he did 2 rehearsals in L.A. earlier in the week for Billboard.

As for the fact you couldn't see Kanye -- we're told he gave producers a specific note about changing lighting and camera angles so he was more visible. We're told Yeezy's a perfectionist when it comes to his final product, and feels like they screwed him.

Jennifer Lopez threw a ton of shade at Mariah Carey ... by burying her head in her smartphone while MC was hitting high notes onstage at the Billboard Music Awards -- and the video is epic.

You've gotta see it -- while Mariah was singing "Infinity" ... J. Lo was casually scrolling through her phone, barely even glancing at the stage.

Even as Taylor Swift and the rest of the audience burst into applause for Mimi ... J.Lo chatted up Casper Smart from their front row seats. Jennifer's no fool though -- when the house lights went up at the end of Mimi's act, then and only then did she give her a hand.

It's hysterical -- you get the feeling Mariah could have been on fire and J.Lo wouldn't give a crap.

Kanye West totally blindsided Billboard Music Awards producers when he performed the n-word laced version of his hit, "All Day" ... and forced the censors to stand on the audio dump button.

Production sources at the award show tell TMZ ... Kanye never did a dress rehearsal of the song, so they just expected him to be on his best behavior, and perform a clean version. One source said, "He knew it was national TV."

We're guessing that's exactly the point, and Kanye knew exactly what he was doing.

Think about it ... his closing act is the one everyone's talking about -- even though they couldn't hear or see most of it.

The production source told us ... "He's Kanye. What are we supposed to do?"