12.4 Million Watched Last Night's MTV Video Music Awards; Twitter Record Set

A night that featured Lady Gaga in male drag, Beyonce coyly unveiling her pregnancy with husband Jay-Z's child, and an all-out performance by best-seller Lil Wayne brought in ratings that exceeded sky high expectations.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the show was the most watched program in MTV's history, bringing in a staggering 12.4 million viewers. Viewership was reportedly up 9 percent from last year’s show, and it was the most-watched live telecast of the year so far (not including sports events).

Ratings were clearly driven by the highly publicized Lady Gaga appearance, rumors of a dual Kanye West/Jay-Z performance on the heels of their release of "Watch the Throne," Lil Wayne's performance right before the release of "Tha Carter IV," and the highly anticipated preview clips from "The Hunger Games."

As Katy Perry, who won Video of the Year for "Firework" told MTV News, "It's definitely just the funnest awards show of the whole gamut, of all the award shows. The VMAs are like a f---ing monkey out of hell awards show."

MTV had also blitzed social media outlets before the show, and the hashtags #vma and #vmas were working overtime throughout the performance.

Perhaps even more amazingly, the announcement about Beyonce's pregnancy, according to Twitter and the Huffington Post "set off a tweeting frenzy that saw 8,868 tweets per second at 10:35 p.m. on Sunday. That's the most tweets per second (TPS) ever recorded for a a single event."

Check out some of the night's key highlights below, including:

- Beyonce's pregnant performance and the unveiling of her baby bump

- Lady Gaga's Jo Calderone monologue and performance of "You and I"

- "The Hunger Games" clip, with an intro from Jennifer Lawrence on the set of the upcoming film