Green Day chants against Trump at American Music Awards

Green Day performs "Bang Bang" at the American Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday. (AP photo)

LOS ANGELES - Green Day led a furious chant against President-elect Donald Trump at the American Music Awards, where Ariana Grande proved her superstar status by taking the top prize.

On a stage full of pyrotechnics, Green Day turned the punk rockers' recent song "Bang Bang" into an anti-Trump anthem at the awards ceremony broadcast live on US television.

"No Trump! No KKK! No Fascist USA!" Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong shouted repeatedly, to smiles from the star-studded audience in Los Angeles and quick commentary on social media.

Green Day, who led a revival of punk rock in the early 1990s, repeatedly denounced Trump during the election campaign in which the Republican ran on staunch criticism of immigrants.

Well before the election, Trump wrote on Twitter in 2010 that he saw Green Day's Broadway musical "American Idiot" with his wife Melania and found it "excellent."

The American Music Awards are based on voting by fans, unlike the more prestigious Grammys, which will take place on February 11 and are determined by a poll of music industry figures.

Ariana Grande, the former child actress who has become one of pop music's leading stars with the success of her latest album "Dangerous Woman," won the top award of Artist of the Year.

The 23-year-old earlier teamed up with rapper Nicki Minaj for the steamiest moment of the evening.

They performed their collaboration "Side to Side" on a jungle-themed stage as topless male dancers rubbed against them, with Minaj opening her own legs and sliding a finger in between.

Chart-topping rapper Drake was up for a record 13 awards on Sunday. He wound up winning four, dominating the rap categories.

Sting, presented with a lifetime achievement award, performed a medley of tracks from Police classics "Message in a Bottle" and "Every Breath You Take" to a song off his new album.

The "Englishman in New York" made what may have been a veiled reference to the political climate as he described rock 'n' roll as "perhaps America's greatest and most influential export."

Rock music has been "always open to all colors in the spirit of welcome and inclusion," Sting said.

"A mixing of culture, of rhythm and passion is what made this country the greatest country in the world."