MTV Video Music Awards: Watch Lady Gaga perform ‘Applause’

Lady Gaga opened the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night with a bang -- and more wigs than an episode of “Real Housewives.�

Performing “Applause,� the lead single from her upcoming “Artpop� album, the pop superstar took the stage of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in a typically wacky outfit that suggested the Flying Nun crossed with SpongeBob SquarePants.

Then she changed costumes. And changed again. And again, each time donning a different hairstyle, until she finished the song wearing a seashell thong bikini and what appeared to be long blond extensions.

PHOTOS: MTV Video Music Awards | Show Highlights

It was, of course, the kind of spectacle we’ve come to expect from Lady Gaga, who famously emerged from an egg to sing “Born This Way� on the VMAs in 2011. But the performance also had an appealingly low-rent quality to it that may (or may not!) indicate what’s in store on “Artpop.�

Watch “Applause� below.

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Twitter: @mikaelwood