Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj showed they have buried the hatchet after their Twitter spat by teaming up on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Swift has had a glittering array of guests on her 1989 tour but it was her turn to make a special appearance, joining Minaj during her opening set at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

Minaj - dressed in an carnival-style sparkling red outfit complete with feather headdress - launched the show with her song Trini Dem Girls before Swift was raised on to the stage in a surprise appearance during The Night Is Still Young.

Finally the pair teamed up for a short chorus of Bad Blood, a tongue in cheek reference to their short-lived misunderstanding, before ending the performance with a hug.

The pair became embroiled in a row in July after the nominations for the VMAs were announced.

Nicki tweeted about how race, gender and body-type may have played into the nominations, and Taylor initially took it as a personal attack and accused Nicki of pitting "women against each other" before later apologising.

But as one feud ended another began, with rapper Minaj launching in to a rant at host Miley Cyrus who said in interview earlier this summer that Minaj was being a poor sport about not receiving a nomination for video of the year.

After picking up the moonman statue for best hip hop video for her raunchy accompaniment to her single Anaconda, Minaj told the audience: "And now back to this b***h that had a lot to say about me a lot in the press. Miley, what's good?"

Minaj's microphone was cut off, and Cyrus replied from across the stage that her words had been manipulated.

Swift, who was the most nominated artist of the night, took home the most coveted award - video of the year - for her track Bad Blood with rapper Kendrick Lamar.

She was flanked by celebrity friends Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne, Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, Lily Aldridge, Martha Hunt, Hailee Steinfeld, Serayah and Mariska Hargitay who all starred in the video.

The leading pop star also took home best female video and best pop video for Blank Space and best collaboration for Bad Blood.