George Michael’s MTV Video Music Awards tribute came with one performer viewers had not been told to expect. After Sombr, RAYE and Teddy Swims moved through some of Michael’s biggest songs Sunday night, Adam Lambert emerged for the finale and took over “Freedom! ’90.”
Lambert had not appeared in the lineup announced before the Sept. 27 ceremony. Five days earlier, MTV named RAYE, Sombr and Teddy Swims as the artists who would honor Michael, with Adam Blackstone serving as music director.
Even the network’s day-of-show tip sheet still listed those three for the tribute while teasing only unspecified surprise guests. The actual performance traveled through several periods of Michael’s career.
PEOPLE reported that Sombr opened with “Faith” and “Father Figure,” RAYE followed with “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” as Michael’s vocals were woven into the performance, and Teddy Swims took on “Careless Whisper.” Then the familiar opening of “Freedom! ’90” began and Lambert appeared to close the medley.
Adam Lambert Was the Guest MTV Had Not Announced
Orville Peck introduced the tribute by looking back at Michael’s rise from teenage pop star to an artist whose music and videos challenged expectations. The advance promotion had already established who would lead most of the medley, but Lambert’s identity remained hidden until the finale itself.
THR described Lambert as the surprise performer who capped the tribute with “Freedom! ’90.” He arrived in a black fringed and studded look before the staging expanded again, with Sombr, RAYE and Swims returning around him.
The finale was larger than the four headline performers alone. PEOPLE identified British singers MEEK, MNEK and Saint Harison among the artists who joined Lambert as the number built into a full-stage celebration, making the unannounced entrance the transition into the tribute’s biggest ensemble moment.
Sombr Performed in George Michael’s Actual ‘Faith’ Tour Jacket
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Sombr’s part of the performance carried a physical connection to Michael’s own career. While singing “Faith” and “Father Figure,” he wore a black Harley-Davidson leather jacket that had actually belonged to Michael rather than a costume designed to resemble his late-1980s wardrobe.
Vogue confirmed that Michael wore the customized jacket during his 1988 Faith Tour and also appeared in it in his Diet Coke commercial. Michael had personalized it with chain-link and pin details, and Sombr paired the original piece with leather trousers, layered necklaces and no shirt for the VMAs performance.
Sombr told the magazine that wearing something so closely tied to that period of Michael’s career felt “pretty surreal, and an honor.” He also described Michael as an influence not only because of the songs, but because Michael wrote, produced and performed his own material while breaking internationally at a similarly young age.
The Tribute Revisited Michael’s MTV History
The performance arrived almost 10 years after Michael died on Dec. 25, 2016, at age 53, but the connection to the VMAs goes back decades. MTV’s own tribute announcement notes that Michael won four VMAs and received the Video Vanguard Award in 1989, while Rolling Stone recalls that Madonna presented him with that honor.
His relationship with the network also included some of the songs revisited Sunday night. “Father Figure” won Best Direction in a Video in 1988, with Michael sharing directing credit with Andy Morahan, while “Freedom! ’90” later became one of the defining visual statements of his post-Faith career.
George Michael’s ‘Faith Tour’ Is Returning as an Album and Film
The VMAs tribute also arrives as Michael’s first solo tour is being reopened for audiences nearly four decades later. The official store says The Faith Tour live album will be released Nov. 6 using previously unreleased recordings from Michael’s 1988 performances at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy.
The concert film draws from the same period but comes from material that spent decades largely unseen. Rolling Stone reports that George Michael: The Faith Tour was assembled from rediscovered footage captured with 14 cameras on 35mm film across two Paris performances. Andy Morahan and David Austin directed the finished film, which reaches U.S. and Canadian theaters Dec. 11.
The theatrical screenings will also include Finding Faith, a new Mary McCartney short built around previously unheard Michael interview audio, unseen Herb Ritts photographs and behind-the-scenes material from the “Faith” music video.