Lady Gaga spent the entire night in drag; Chris Brown flew above the audience like Mary Poppins; Britney Spears was officially anointed as a legend of our time.

Yet as jaw-dropping as those moments were at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, the show’s most surprising moment came with one simple rub of a belly.

Beyonce’s gesture at the end of her performance gave visual confirmation to her announcement on the VMA black carpet — she and husband Jay-Z were with child. With perhaps the most anticipated baby announcement outside of Will and Kate, their unborn baby became the instant star of the VMAs, upstaging Gaga, Spears, and Katy Perry, the belle of the ball with 10 nominations.

Perry ended up going home with just three, but captured the evening’s most important moonman trophy, video of the year, for her inspirational clip “Firework.”

“I feel like I’m doing something right when I sing that song,” said Perry, conservatively dressed in a cotton-candy pink jacket, a skirt and something best described as a Green Bay Packers cheesehead decoration.

Adele, the year’s top-selling artist, also won three for her video “Rolling in the Deep”; she had been nominated for seven. Gaga ended up winning two.