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Kanye West Explains His Motivations Behind Interrupting Taylor Swift’s 2009 VMAs Acceptance Speech

One of the most awkward and iconic MTV VMAs moments, explained by the person who instigated it.

One of the most awkward and iconic MTV VMAs moments, finally explained. 

Who could forget the time in 2009 when Kanye West rushed onto the MTV VMAs stage to interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech? It still makes us cringe. Hard.

Taylor was standing there in a glittery dress, accepting the Best Female Video award for “You Belong With Me” when Kanye run onstage and grabbed the mic.

“Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!” he said, referring to Bey’s “Single Ladies”. Cameras immediately cut to Beyonce sitting in the audience, mouth open in horror. “Oh, Kanye,” you could see her say. It was wildly uncomfortable, to say the least.

Fast forward to today, 11 years on, and we’re finally finding out what the hell – or rather, who the hell – motivated Kanye to do such a thing? Turns out, it was the Lord Almighty himself – that's right: God.

On an episode of Nick Cannon’s Cannon’s Class podcast this week, Kanye revealed he stormed the stage because he’d been asked to by God.

“If God ain’t want me to run on stage and say Beyoncé had the best video, he wouldn’t have sat me in the front row,” Kanye explained. “I would’ve been sitting in the back and they would’ve made it the first award and he wouldn’t have made it so ridiculous, because I had never heard of this person before and ‘Single Ladies’ is one of the greatest videos of all time.”

He continued: “Right now, God is giving me the information and he ain’t give me no other information […] So that means he wants me to say this now.”

It was thought Ye had been intoxicated at the VMAs 2009 awards show because he’d been seen drinking from a bottle of Hennessy Brandy during the event. He says: “I was only drinking Hennessy because I didn’t want to go to the awards show because it was a set-up.”

The incident was brought up earlier this year too in Taylor’s Netflix documentary Miss Americana. Swift said the stage storming incident was “sort of a catalyst for a lot of psychological paths [she] went down. And not all were beneficial.” She explained she’d thought the crowd jeers were directed at her – not at Kanye.

Here's the incident again if you so wish to watch/wince:

Main Image Credit: Licensed by Getty

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