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Kanye West apologies for MTV Video Music Awards outburst
By Alistair Foster, London Lite Last updated at 16:36pm on 14.09.09Kanye West has apologised for interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for best female video at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York last night.
Kanye shut up? Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift
The rapper jumped on stage while the 19-year-old singer accepted an award for her song You Belong With Me, telling the audience that Beyonce should have won for her video Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It).
"Taylor, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time," said West.
Taylor (the biggest-selling artist of the year so far in the US apart from Michael Jackson, we might add) understandably looked shocked when Kanye invaded the stage while she was accepting her award.
Shameless: Kanye West drinks Cognac straight from the bottle
A crestfallen Taylor didn't finish her speech, but the crowd applauded her anyway. She later got her chance though, courtesy of Beyoncé, who won video of the year for Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).
When she won, she recalled that she won her first VMA as a 17-year-old as part of Destiny's Child. “I remember how excited I was,” she said. “I'd like Taylor to come out and have her moment.”
A smiling but nervous Taylor then said, “Can we try this again?” before going on to thank everyone she would have thanked had Kanye not interrupted her.
Take two: Beyonce later asks Taylor Swift to finish her speech
The celebrity crowd was unforgiving of the rapper. When Diddy read his name later in the show while introducing the nominees for best male video, the crowd booed, and Diddy said in mock surprise, “What happened?” The crowd responded by chanting Swift's name. They also booed his name later.
Perhaps realising that he had been a total jerk, Kanye desperately tried to make amends in the early hours of this morning when he wrote on his blog: “I'm sooooo sorry to Taylor Swift and her fans and her mom. I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would've said. She is very talented.”
Showgirl: Beyonce performs Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
He was clearly very emotional, as he wrote the entire apology in capital letters. Surely Taylor can forgive him now.
In pictures: the MTV Music Video Awards
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Reader views (6)
What Kanye did was rude, disrespectful, and cruel. Taylor worked hard for that moment, and he ruined it. Someone said something about his opinion aerlier on the posts. That made me angry. Just because he had an opinion didn't give him the right to snatch the microphone and say she didn't deserve the award. Even if he had no fear of being publicly scruitnized, he should have cared about how that wuold make someone feel.
- Mary, Tennessee
That was a big smack in the face to him when Beyonce called Taylor back up, good on her! When he released his first album he was so dignified and down to earth. It really has all gone to his head - the idiot.
- Jen, London
No Bob he is not going for the intellectual end of the market - but having said that if this is the sort of representation of successful people in pop culture today then some impressionable children out there will have no chance of improving intellectually - this guy behaves like an idiot - but on the other hand it seems that every few months their is something about him in mainstream news, and synical old me just thinks its all on purpose so that he stays in the news even when he does not (as with last night), win an award - horrible personality but some would say a clever manipulator of the media age we all now unfortunately live in.
- Melly, Cartagena, Colombia
What an absolute pillock he is. Too bad it wasn't Pink whose moment he ruined, she would have decked him.
- Kevin T, Beckenham, Kent
that was a good thing beyonce did for taylor i'm a BIG taylor swift fan and kanye west had no right to go and ruin her speech!
- Leigh-Ann, alabama,vinemont
So what's new? Big middle class rapper behaves like a child, at least Beyonce showed a bit of class about the whole affair, I'm sure his marketing machine will recover, let's be honest, he's hardly going for the intellectual end of the market is he?
- Bob, Cheam
