VMA’s 2022: Pop Star Reportedly Plotting Surprise Comeback Performance

[UPDATE: Fergie didn’t wait long to return, kicking off the show with Jack Harlow and Lizzo. See the moment here.] Rumor has it that a pop star is making a comeback! DailyMail.com reports that a production source revealed that Fergie is making a surprise comeback performance at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards. The singer has been practicing at the Prudential Center ahead of her first live performance in four years, according to an insider.

Fergie (real name Stacy Ferguson) rose to fame in 2002 as a lead singer for the Black Eyed Peas. Among her biggest hits were “Let’s Get It Started,” “Boom Boom Pow,” “My Humps,” and “I Gotta Feeling.” But after 15 years and four albums, she left the band. 

Her departure from the band was rumored to be due to her desire to focus on her solo career, although she never revealed the exact reason. According to Fergie’s former band mates, she also wanted to concentrate on being a mom to her young son.

“That’s a hard job, and that’s what she really wants to do and we’re here for her, and she knows how to contact us for a retreat or a breakaway,” Black Eyed Peas member Will.i.am said in a 2020 interview. “It’s really the way Fergie designed it, so we’re respecting her design. We love Fergie, and we don’t want anything but awesomeness for her.” She was replaced by singer J. Rey Soul, a finalist in the first season of The Voice of the Philippines.

The singer did focus on her solo career, releasing Double Duchess in 2017 as her second solo album. “It’s been 11 years since I released an album so I felt like it was time to show all the parts—intimate, fun, laughing, crying,” she told PEOPLE magazine at the time. “All of it. And this is the place for me to release what’s in my journals. I’ve been through a lot of experiences in life and I felt like why not share them?” The album was Fergie’s first release under her own record label, Duchess Music. Despite mixed reviews, the album debuted 19 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Fergie also made headlines in 2017 when she and actor Josh Duhamel, her husband of eight years, announced their separation. After dating since 2004, they had one son together, Axl Jack, in 2013. Fergie filed for divorce two years after their separation was announced, and their split became official in November 2019. Besides her music career, Fergie is also a successful entrepreneur, with two footwear lines, Fergalicious by Fergie and Fergie Footwear. In 2006, she founded the Santa Barbara-based winery Ferguson Crest with her dad, Pat Ferguson. 

The hitmaker will allegedly appear at tonight’s MTV Video Music Awards ceremony, where Nicki Minaj will receive the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, one of the night’s biggest honors. The rapper will also perform a medley of some of her greatest hits influenced by her video catalog. 

The event will feature several other musical performances, with Lizzo set to perform “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready).” K-pop group Blackpink will also perform their new single, “Pink Venom.” Anitta, J Balvin, Kane Brown, Jack Harlow, Khalid and Marshmello, Måneskin, and Panic At The Disco will also all be performing.