AMSTERDAM — Miley Cyrus opened MTV’s Europe Music Awards with her hit song “We Can’t Stop” — while wearing a space-themed silver spandex suit and twerking with a female dwarf.

To the delight of the crowd in Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome, Cyrus finished the number by sticking out her tongue — the same expression she flashed repeatedly during her eyebrow-raising appearance at MTV’s Video Music Awards in New York in August.

The European awards traditionally focus on global, rather than U.S. pop music acts, though the overlap is huge: Justin Timberlake and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are nominated in five categories each.

The “intergalactic”-themed show is scheduled to be rebroadcast in the U.S. later Sunday.

Among early winners were Katy Perry for Best Female Artist. Perry, apparently caught by surprise, spit out a sip of champagne and took the stage to thank her fans.

During her performance, she hung suspended by wires as green lasers reflected off her mirrored outfit.

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Bruno Mars won Best Song for “Locked Out of Heaven.”

In Cyrus’s opening act, she “twerked” — gyrating and shaking her buttocks — in the general direction of her smaller dance partner. The partner, dressed in a similar outfit in black, then returned the favor.

The number concluded with Cyrus among a mob of dancing women dressed up as fanciful extraterrestrials.

Later in the show, the 20-year-old Cyrus also performed her current top hit “Wrecking Ball” against the backdrop of a giant video screen of herself crying.


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