Also, "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye featuring Kimbra, "Thank U" by Alanis Morissette, "Fjogur piano" by Sigur Ros have nudity, but these aren't controversial as the nudity is treated as art in those videos. Plus the video for "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot isn't controversial enough in this list, despite the song having a dirty rap influence. Not all music videos in this list are banned, but have had been edited for daytime showings.
Concept: This Joseph Kahn-directed video showed the band invisible and it marked a new look for lead singer Shirley Manson, who dyed her red hair platinum blonde.
Controversial scene: Shirley stamping on lightbulbs and urinating while standing up.
Banned by MTV?: None, though the video did get edited, removing the lightbulbs scene, by MTV. However the video was shown uncensored by VH1. In an recent interview, Shirley has regretted making the video, though it is considered to be one of the band's best videos by longtime fans.
Concept: An androgynous alien rockstar (played by Manson) is captured by scientists who is studied at the laboratory and then flees the laboratory where he goes inside a limousine in order to get ready for a concert. This marked a new phase for Manson and his band, departing from dark industrial to more glam rock.
Controversial scene: Some nudity scenes involving Manson, however this was not controversial enough to allow MTV ban the video, hence he was actually wearing prosthetics for the video. Ironically the album cover which depicted a nude Manson was banned by several Walmart stores.
Banned by MTV?: None.
Concept: Michael emphasises that he is in a monogamous relationship. Co-starring his then-girlfriend Kathy Jeung.
Controversial scene: The video itself due to its taboo-ish content.
Banned by MTV?: Daytime only, as it was censored for that. Due to its sexual content, the uncensored version only aired during nighttime and the video release was rated 15 in the UK.
Concept: Two drug addicts steal money and a car in order to buy heroin to inject themselves.
Controversial scene: The characters inject heroin in the penultimate scene. Also the theme of prostitution is controversial too.
Banned by MTV?: The uncut version was banned, however the censored version had heavy rotation, but at night-time.
Concept: Duff is surrounded by almost-naked people.
Controversial scene: There's a heavy use of sexual content: nudity, S&M, thumb sucking and humping.
Banned by MTV?: Daytime only as it was aired during night-time. Plus some countries banned it as well.
Concept: Pink decides to move on from her relationship with her boyfriend (played by her husband Carey Hart, as at the time they were separated) by chainsawing a tree with a carving of a heart saying "Alecia (her actual first name) + Carey".
Controversial scene: Pink tries to light a fire on her cigarette, which causes it to burn her hair. Another scene sees Pink taking off her clothes while paparazzi takes pictures of her and she streaks naked (black bars covers the nudity).
Banned by MTV?: None, as the hair burning scene was edited out in the UK.
Concept: Madonna plays a witness at a murder and encounters a black man, who later gets arrested for the murder. She goes to a church, where she prays and then sees a saint, who resembles the same black man accused of murder. This marked a new image for the Queen of Pop, as she dyed her blonde hair brown for the video.
Controversial scene: Madonna cuts her hands at a church, showing stigmata.
Banned by MTV?: None, despite that the video was condemned by the Catholic Church for the depiction of stigmata. Pepsi however, decided to pull Madonna out of a campaign, though she did retain the initial fee. Not only it was controversial, it is considered to be one of the greatest music videos of the Eighties.
Concept: Spears plays a schoolgirl at a Catholic school who dances during a lesson.
Controversial scene: Spears exposing her midriff in a schoolgirl uniform.
Banned by MTV?: None, as it was a number-one hit in the US and the UK.
Concept: A young woman (played by 90210's Tina Majorino) experiences flashbacks of her past childhood, where she was a wild child.
Controversial scene: Majorino's character self-harms herself in the bathtub.
Banned by MTV?: The bathtub scene was edited for daytime airings to avoid any people copying the scene.
Concept: A naked Bjork cocoons herself using red strings out of her nipples.
Controversial scene: Nudity in the video.
Banned by MTV?: In America only, as it was aired on MTV2 instead. However, it did get heavy rotation in Europe, especially Portugal.
Concept: Lead singer Nina Persson joyrides through a highway.
Controversial scene: There are five endings. Ending one: Persson dies. Ending two: Persson manages to move, only to knocked out by a stone. Ending three: Persson manages to move and leaves the crash site. Ending four: Persson is decapitated. Ending five: Omits all four endings and it is a one-shot video.
Banned by MTV?: Three versions of it were banned. Only versions three and five were allowed to air.
Concept: Uses heavy footage of the band's "making of" documentary on their 1991 black album, A Year and a Half in the Life of...
Controversial scene: Pin-up posters of Playboy centerfolds appear in the recording studio.
Banned by MTV?: None, however the Playboy posters were censored for the 2006 music video compilation The Videos 1989-2004. It has since been relegated to night-time showings.
Concept: Based on the controversial anime Kite, the video shows lead singer Gwen Stefani (who had a new image, by dyeing her platinum blonde hair to pink) cross-dressing and going to a men's bathroom where she confronts bassist Tony Kanal (concidentally, both were in a relationship prior to the band's breakthrough, their breakup inspired the song "Don't Speak").
Controversial scene: Stefani becoming violent with several men and in the end, is grabbed by Kanal and they plummet in the end.
Banned by MTV?: None, but it did cause a backlash from fans, which is one of the reasons why the album that accompanied it, Return of Saturn flopped.
Concept: The pop punk band runs away naked, which attracts a lot of attention.
Controversial scene: The band are naked while walking.
Banned by MTV?: None, as the naked parts were pixelated.
Concept: The band performs on an elevated stage surrounded by women doing controversial stuff.
Controversial scene: Sexual BDSM, fetishism and fantasy
Banned by MTV?: This video was made before MTV was launched on August 1981 and it was edited for daytime airings when the newly-formed channel aired it. It was however banned by the BBC. With this, it became the band's first major hit.
Concept: The singer sings to a flock of sailors.
Controversial scene: Cher wears a revealing one-piece bathing suit with fishnet stockings.
Banned by MTV?: For a brief time until the singer agreed to do shoot new scenes for the censored version. The uncensored version was relegated to night-time.
Concept: The band are sent to a Wizard of Oz-esque world.
Controversial scene: An elderly man climbs on a Christian cross and a platinum blonde-hair girl wearing an Ku Klux Klan outfit.
Banned by MTV?: None. However, the channel refused to air a proposed "Rape Me" video due to the song's content and this video became Nirvana's last before Kurt Cobain's apparent suicide by gunshot in 1994.
Concept: A girl watches television with people as living skeletons.
Controversial scene: The girl slits her right hand to remove her skin, revealing her muscles, which causes her to collapse.
Banned by MTV?: None, however the video was rated 15 in the UK.
Concept: Timberlake stares at topless women wearing g-strings.
Controversial scene: Moderate nudity
Banned by MTV?: None, however as the video was deleted by YouTube, though it was resubmitted to be age restricted.
Concept: A woman who is abused by her antagonistic husband, confronts him at gunpoint.
Controversial scene: The woman is affected by domestic violence.
Banned by MTV?: None, however the video was banned by CMT (MTV's sister channel known for country music) for a certain time until a group of female people praised as it was against domestic violence, which lead the video to return on TV.
Concept: The band become more rowdy. This was the first video to feature new guitarist Dave Navarro.
Controversial scene: Dark scenes, plus lead singer Anthony Kiedis kisses Navarro in the end. Kinda ironic, as it was actually part of the video. Also, Kiedis is wearing S&M-style trousers.
Banned by MTV?: None, however the band's label Warner Bros. considered it unmarketable until they changed their minds after it was shown to the band's fanbase to positive reception.
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Concept: In this MTV VMA-winning video, a bullied Jeremy begins to suffer from visions which causes him to kill himself in front of his school class.
Controversial scene: The titular protagonist puts a gun on his mouth, pulling the trigger, killing himself.
Banned by MTV?: None, as the gun suicide was cut for a good reason. Due to this, the band did not promote their singles with videos until 1998 with the animated video for "Do the Evolution" (though "Oceans" was the last single to be promoted with a video, but it was never released in the US). However after the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, MTV relegated the video to late-night showings.
Concept: Rihanna is interrogated in a gas chamber, where she visits her lover.
Controversial scene: The end of the video shows Rihanna's lover apparently killing himself.
Banned by MTV?: None.
Concept: The band perform, juxtaposing scenes of lead singer Adam Levine passionately kissing his then-girlfriend.
Controversial scene: Nudity in the passionate kissing scene.
Banned by MTV?: None, as the nudity was censored with flowers covering it.
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Concept: Farmer is abused by a man in black, who is the Devil.
Controversial scene: Blasphemous material, alongside with nudity, rape and blood.
Banned by MTV?: None, however the French singer's video was censored by popular French channel M6.
Concept: Cyrus crushes blocks of steel as the song progresses.
Controversial scene: Cyrus is naked on a wrecking ball, where she licks the pole.
Banned by MTV?: None, however due to the recent MTV Video Music Awards controversy, the video had three versions: One with nudity, one without nudity and one which is a one-shot video. This controversy actually helped the song to be a number-one hit in her native America and her second in the UK.
Concept: Rihanna confronts paparazzis by gagging them.
Controversial scene: The video itself.
Banned by MTV?: Relegated to night-time showings. It has been banned in 11 countries. You must be 18 to watch it on YouTube. This actually helped the song to become a US number-one hit.
Concept: Eminem is in a mental hospital, where he raps against gay marriage, Britney Spears, Fred Durst, boybands and people copying him.
Controversial scene: Like the song, the video was also controversial due to being homophobic.
Banned by MTV?: None, the video was heavily edited for daytime showings. This became the Bad Boy of Hip Hop's first UK number-one.
Concept: Jackson sings through different areas, plus a guest appearance from Macaulay Culkin.
Controversial scene: Though most of the video remains not controversial as it was one of the first videos to have a morphing sequence in the end of the video. The last four minutes shows Jackson vandalising after morphing from a panther.
Banned by MTV?: None, as the edited video got heavy rotation. The uncut version however was put into night-time showings. Jackson said after the uncut version was banned for daytime showings, that the last four minutes was not meant to be controversial. To make it more understandable, the four minutes were altered with four racist graffiti messages added on the windows in order to show that Jackson was vandalising the windows as a sign of against racism.
Concept: Based on founder Liam Howlett's dream, the video shows the band (first time as a trio after Leeroy Thornhill's departure in 1999), dressed as businessmen, going to a funfair, where they change into their usual clothes.
Controversial scene: Drug content, plus topless strippers.
Banned by MTV?: None. However the video got a lot of negative reception. Since then, Howlett has disowned the song.
Concept: The video shows Jackson in a prison with other cellmates
Controversial scene: It was controversial due to real footage of police attacking African Americans, the military crackdown of the protest in the Tiananmen Square, the Ku Klux Klan, war crimes, genocide, execution, martial law, and other human rights abuses.
Banned by MTV?: The video did not get heavy rotation, so the more-popular second version, shot in the Brazilian favelas did.
Concept: A military squad capture a group of redheads.
Controversial scene: The redheads are executed by the military squad, showing genocide.
Banned by MTV?: None, the video was pulled by YouTube a day after it premiered. The artist herself blamed her record label Interscope for the ban.
Concept: Eminem-obsessed fan Stan (played by Devon Sawa) writes a letter to Eminem about he loves him and wants to kill himself in his car with his girlfriend (played by Dido), crashing in a bridge.
Controversial scene: Stan dies in the end when his car crashes in a bridge, drowning him.
Banned by MTV?: None, the video was cut from eight minutes to six minutes for daytime airings. Both the eight-minute and the six-minute versions received heavy rotation. There is a ten-minute version where Dido's character is gagged and trapped at the back of Stan's car.
Concept: Williams tries to get attention from a female DJ.
Controversial scene: Williams strips off his skin and muscles near the end.
Banned by MTV?: The stripping off scene was cut for daytime airings and the video was banned in the Dominican Republic. It became a number-one hit in the UK.
Concept: Aguilera goes in a foxy boxing tournament. This introduced the new image of the then 21-year-old singer, who changed from a "girl next door" image to a more sexier image.
Controversial scene: Raunchy scenes.
Banned by MTV?: Nope, but it was banned in Thailand. Plus ITV launched a night-time version of CD:UK for this reason.
Concept: German metal sextet Rammstein star as robbers, who steal money from the bank.
Controversial scene: Like most Rammstein videos, this video is indeed controversial.
Banned by MTV?: As the single came out a day before 9/11, the American debut of the video was scrapped by most channels, alongside with MTV.
Concept: The alt-metal-grunge band wander around in a desert.
Controversial scene: Blasphemous scenes showing a girl in a cross.
Banned by MTV?: After it was debuted in October 1991, the video was met with a lot of controversy, which lead the channel to ban it outright.
Concept: The band are in a surreal area where they encounter several controversial figures.
Controversial scene: A lookalike of then-U.S. president George W. Bush spill oil to the audience and then becomes a eagle-headed human, who then eats the audience, who have been turned into fish.
Banned by MTV?: Relegated to night-time showings.
Concept: Spears plays an air hostess, who is actually a secret agent that is trying to get revenge against her ex-boyfriend.
Controversial scene: Spears is naked, but covered in diamonds.
Banned by MTV?: Relegated to night-time showings after the Super Bowl XXXVIII wardrobe malfunction controversy. However the video had heavy rotation during daytime outside North America.
Concept: Badu strips off her clothes, showing her naked during the video and is then assassinated in the end.
Controversial scene: The nudity scenes.
Banned by MTV?: Indeed, the nudity caused the network to pull the video and the singer herself was fined $500 by the city of Dallas, Texas.
Concept: Madonna plays a dominatrix in the video, which is interspersed with the footage of the photo shooting from the controversial Sex book.
Controversial scene: S&M, nudity, bondage and fellatio.
Banned by MTV?: After night-time heavy rotation three times, it was banned. The singer herself accepted the ban explaining that some of the channel's audience are children and the video was not suitable for children.
Concept: The pop-punk band dress up as monkey-rats who tranquillise people and trap them in a cage.
Controversial scene: Homophobia, zoophilia, sexual content and offence to French people
Banned by MTV?: The video was put into night-time showings due to its controversial nature.
Concept: Thicke, Pharrell and T.I. causally stands in front of a light-pink background, where they flirt with three models.
Controversial scene: The three models are topless in the uncensored version.
Banned by MTV?: None, however the uncensored version was banned by YouTube and it was uploaded by Vevo instead. Recently, the song has been banned in several universities in the UK. It was a number-one hit in the US and the UK.
Concept: Gaga stars as Mary Magdalene in this modernised retelling of how Judas betrayed Jesus.
Controversial scene: Gaga is stoned to death in the end.
Banned by MTV?: Relegated to night-time showings in the US after the Catholic League condemned it.
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Concept: The band explore a violent and sexual world.
Controversial scene: Sexual content and blasphemy.
Banned by MTV?: After the premiere, the video was banned by the network and the two scenes containing sexual content and blasphemy were censored for MTV2 airings.
Concept: Madonna plays a woman who is tired and enters her hotel room where she encounters a mysterious man, followed by several couple cavorting in BDSM clothing.
Controversial scene: Nudity and S&M
Banned by MTV?: Yes, North America only. However, Madonna decided to release a video single of the provocative song, which helped the single to become a number-one hit in the US. Not only that, it foreshadowed her 1992 Erotica album. The video single was rated 18 in the UK.
Concept: Jay-Z walks through his native New York state where the video shows the lifestyle in the town of Brooklyn.
Controversial scene: Dogfighting and Jay-Z is shot dead in the end.
Banned by MTV?: None, however the channel left the video uncensored with an introduction by reporter John Norris explaining that the video should remain uncut. Due to this, the rapper himself said that the death marked the end of him as Jay-Z and the beginning of him as Shawn Carter (his actual name).
Concept: The DJ plays a pimp whose limo crashes a Mazda, in a parody of gangsta rap videos.
Controversial scene: There are 127 uses of profanity, alongside with 44 uses of the f-word, in the uncensored version.
Banned by MTV?: The uncensored 10-minute version was put in night-time showings as the censored version had heavy rotation. The video was rated 15 in the UK.
Concept: Frontman Trent Reznor is in a 19th century-style mad scientist's room where he is fantasised with dark imagery.
Controversial scene: Nudity, animal cruelty and S&M
Banned by MTV?: The video was censored for daytime airings and the uncensored version had more heavy rotation than the censored version.
Concept: POV of a person who goes on a night out and after addicted to heroin and cocaine, the person fights with men, verbally attacks women, drink and drive, hit-and-run and drug abuse. In the end, the person is actually a woman. The only video not to feature the dance punk band.
Controversial scene: Sex, drugs, vandalism, nudity and violence
Banned by MTV?: After a week, the video was banned due to protests of feminist groups. The video later aired during night-time with an MTV News warning. Also, the song was refused to play by several radio stations because of the controversial lyrics "Change the pitch up, smack my bitch up.", which were considered misogynistic, however the band themselves denied this song was ever misogynistic. The song is banned by the BBC.
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