Lady Gaga gives surprise shout out to Houston

She told the star-studded audience: "I need to say thank you tonight to Whitney Houston.

"I wanted to thank Whitney because when I wrote Born This Way, I imagined she was singing it because I wasn't secure enough in myself to imagine I was a superstar. So Whitney, I imagined you were singing Born This Way when I wrote it. Thank you."

Lady Gaga performed the song for the first time at the Los Angeles ceremony, making a grand entrance as she hatched from a futuristic egg-shaped incubator before launching into the track.