Kanye West Crashes VMA Stage During Taylor Swift's Award Speech

Kanye continues his history of onstage award-show rants
By Jayson Rodriguez, with additional reporting by James Montgomery and Shaheem Reid
Sep 13 2009 9:55 PM EDT (MTV.com)


This year, Kanye West picked the beginning of the Video Music Awards to deliver one of his famous rants.

The rapper stormed the stage just after the first award, for Best Female Video, was presented to Taylor Swift. He cut the teen singer off, grabbing the mic and protesting in support of Beyoncé.

"I'm sorry, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time," he proclaimed as B looked on from the crowd, stunned.

During the 2007 VMAs in Las Vegas, West delivered another rant and lost his temper after he was displeased with his performance being set inside a hotel suite rather than on the show's main stage.

'Ye's rants are usually in support of his own work. He memorably took the stage at the American Music Awards in 2004, declaring he was robbed of the Best New Artist nod.

His protest against Swift, however, was not well received. West stood briefly on the stage after his comments as the crowd was silent. Audience members then began to clap in support of Swift after West left the stage.

According to reports from inside the house, once cameras cut away from the action, West flipped off the crowd and returned to his seat. Wale then said to the crowd, "You can't blame a man for speaking his mind." His words were met with boos, and Wale then said, "Kanye, I tried." During the next commercial break, Pink walked by the rapper and appeared to shake her head in disgust before security escorted her away. West remained steadfast amidst the commotion as he kissed his girlfriend Amber Rose.