The 25th Anniversary of MTV's Video Music Awards became the Britney Spears show on Sunday admist performances from T.I., Rihanna, Lil Wayne and more.

Pratically erasing memories of the singer's troubled 2007 performance of "Gimme More," Spears came away with three of the network's "moonmen" awards including Video of the Year.

Opening the show, which was live from Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, Spears introduced Rihanna's performance of "Disturbia" filled with "Thriller-Like" dancers and gothic costumes making the "Good Girl Gone Bad" singer's performance a highlight of the show.

Not far away, Chris Brown admired Rihanna as she performed, he later pickup the award for Best Male video ("With You") which was suprisingly the only win for the teen-heartthrob. Brown's leading nominations dwindled as the night went on with chart-topping entertainers like The Pussycat Dolls who won Best Dance Video and Lil Wayne who picked up Best Hip Hop video for "Lollipop."

Lil Wayne took the stage twice at the show, once with Kid Rock and another collaborating with Leona Lewis and T-Pain for "A Milli" and "Got Money." LL Cool J, T.I. and Kanye West rounded out a line-up of well received Hip Hop performances including T.I.'s hot performance with Rihanna.

Kanye West who ended his "VMA Strike" this week, performed "Love Lockdown," the rumored first single form his as-yet-untitled fourth album. West's performance matched that of Christina Aguilera who made a comeback during the show performing a remixed version of the breakthrough hit "Genie In A Bottle" following by the singer's first single in a number of years entitled "Keeps Gettin' Better."

John Legend, Ne-Yo, Busta Rhymes, Lupe Fiasco, and Jordin Sparks were also in attendance at the awards where there was no sign of Michael Jackson who had been rumored to have been in talks to appear on the show.