Bieber, One Direction, Swift set for American Music Awards

They also won favourite duo or group – pop/rock Sunday night.

One Direction pulled off a big upset at the American Music Awards on Sunday night, defending their title as Artist of the Year against heavily favored Taylor Swift, who had never lost the category before when nominated.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images “As a kid in the Bronx I watched the American Music Awards every year… they became my heroes”, Lopez gushed.

“Where Are U Now” lacked an appearance from Skrillex and Diplo, who earlier on in the night with Bieber accepted the award for Best Collaboration. It’s as simple as this: “we won’t be able to do this without our fans”, Niall Horan said.

Selena Gomez performed a sultry rendition of her latest hit “Same Old Love”, country star Carrie Underwood belted her romantic ballad “Heartbeat” and Ariana Grande got the crowd dancing with her upbeat hit “Focus”.

The singer’s comeback album, “Purpose”, is likely to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart – though it’s in a close race with One Direction’s “Made In the A.M”. The ceremony opened with host Jennifer Lopez doing a dance medley to this year’s biggest hits.

Music and fashion collide in a major way as a few of today’s hottest artists strut their stuff on the American Music Awards 2015 (AMAs) red carpet. She is the leading AMAs nominee with six.

“I’m still laughing at Charlie and Meghan smooching”, Bryan said onstage after winning favorite male artist country.

Also in black was singer Ciara, who wore a sheer floor-length gown and model Gigi Hadid who wore a stunning white ensemble that showed off her midriff.

Swift was deemed Best Artist Adult Contemporary, while her CD 1989 won for Best Album Pop/Rock and her hit “Blank Space” was voted Song of the Year.

Ashton Irwin of 5 Seconds of Summer, which performed during the show, said the band wants to help its fans make sense of the most recent attacks.