Seriously, when will you people learn? It’s rule number one when it comes to organising awards shows, but you always ignore it.
Never invite Kanye West. That’s it. It’s a fundamental awards show rule. Invite Kanye West and he’ll invariably end up losing an award he assumed he’d win, shrieking indignantly about it for 30 minutes and then pooing in his pants on purpose while refusing to break eye contact with the camera. It always happens. Never invite Kanye West.
Just ask Taylor Swift, whose MTV VMA acceptance speech Kanye West obliterated last night because he thought she wasn’t very good.
Ahead of last night’s MTV VMAs, we were trying to predict where the obligatory outrage would stem from this year. The smart money was on host Russell Brand – who last year offended everyone by mocking virgins – once again ramming his foot into his mouth. Or maybe Britney Spears would stumble around in a bikini again. Or maybe there’d be another redneck punch-up over a funny-looking booby model.
But no. The answer was right under our nose all along. It was almost too obvious – Kanye West would behave like a self-regarding prick. Of course he would. That’s Kanye West’s bread and butter. Strip away all the grating egomania and what does that leave Kanye West with? A weird album that sounds like Johnny 5 self-harming and nothing else, that’s what.
So what form did Kanye West’s MTV VMAs exhibition of prickishness take? Was it that he didn’t win an award that he thought he deserved, again? Or that he didn’t get to perform at the exact point in the ceremony that he wanted to, again? No. It was because Taylor Swift won the MTV VMA award for Best Female Video and Beyonce didn’t. There’s video, although we’re legally obliged to point out that the following images may be disturbing for readers with an unusually low tolerance for profound awkwardness…
It’s the perfect video, isn’t it? Everything you could ever want, encapsulated into one perfect minute – Beyonce looking as if she genuinely wants to die, Kanye West realising three quarters of the way through his rant that maybe he’s coming off as a bit of a prick and, best of all, Taylor Swift’s utterly distraught face 57 seconds in. Like we said, perfect.
However, after being escorted from the ceremony, Kanye West had a change of heart and apologised to Taylor Swift the only way he knows how – with a hard-to-read, all-caps, over-punctuated blog that contains the word ‘Boooyaaawwww’. Look:
?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! I LIKE THE LYRICS ABOUT BEING A CHEERLEADER AND SHE?S IN THE BLEACHERS! ???????? I?M IN THE WRONG FOR GOING ON STAGE AND TAKING AWAY FROM HER MOMENT!?????.. I?M SORRY TO MY FANS IF I LET YOU GUYS DOWN!!!! I?M SORRY TO MY FRIENDS AT MTV. I WILL APOLOGIZE TO TAYLOR 2MRW. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!!!! EVERYBODY WANNA BOOOOO ME BUT I?M A FAN OF REAL POP CULTURE!!! I?M STILL HAPPY FOR TAYLOR!!!! BOOOYAAAWWWW!!!! YOU ARE VERY VERY TALENTED!!! I?M NOT CRAZY YALL, I?M JUST REAL. SORRY FOR THAT!!! I REALLY FEEL BAD FOR TAYLOR AND I?M SINCERELY SORRY!!! MUCH RESPECT!!!!!?
Oh Kanye West, we can’t stay mad at you. True, you might be an obnoxious, overbearing prick with a confused sense of your own importance and a craving for approval that’s actually quite pitiful to witness, but you know what would have happened if you hadn’t stormed the stage at the MTV VMAs last night? We’d have been forced to write about Taylor Swift’s winning video. Bleurgh.
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Karla says
That’s true. And who was that girl at the end with Alicia Keys and Jay Z?? Did you see that??
Shooty* says
Apparently, that was “lil mama”, a rapper so obscure that even Speech Dubelle has probably never heard of her.
Kanye has now strayed squarely into “Seriously, that is so incredible, I don’t know whether to be totally awestruck” territory.
P!nk is my new hero. Apparently, security had to stop her from decking him. Nice.
gilbert wham says
If someone would just punch Kanye West every time he went outside, I would be a much happier man.
Karla says
Thanks Shooty. The only reason I watched was because Russell Brand was going to host…HE IS SERIOUSLY HOT!!!!! Didn’t think it was going to be such a weird show.
Bridget says
First of all, Taylor is amazingly talented, a great singer/songwriter, and insanly down to earth. That was the first time Taylor had won a vma and she was soo surprised and happy about it. So how could Kanye run up to the stage, grab the the mic from the 19 yearold’s hands and tell everyone how she didn’t deserve that award. She won and deserved to be nominated for the video of the year in my oppinion (THAT’S MY OPPINION). How does Kanye have the nerve? Did u see how hurt she looked after? I don’t know how she got up and preformed 5 minutes later! (The preformance was amazing btw)
shooty* says
My god! You’re right! I hadn’t realised that!
shooty* says
Our Father, who art in New York,
Kanye be thy Name.
Thy album come.
Thy will be done,
Beyonce SO had the best video of the year.
Give us this day our daily outburst.
And forgive Taylor Swift her trespasses,
As we forgive Taylor Swift for having the audacity to win something.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from fishsticks.
For thine is the ego,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
tine says
bloody brilliant…..
Sean Price says
I feel sorry for Taylor Swift, but Kanye is right.
F*** Taylor Swift Buck.
Gemma Riley says
Love the ending line hehe. Taylor Swift’s bland anyway and Kanye is one of the most talented artists of the last few years. He was drunk when he did that and he probably couldn’t believe his eyes that Beyonce didn’t win. I genuinely think Beyonce’s video is great. At first I thought it was just 3 girls dancing (like the people who never watched it before the VMA’s and are only saying it’s bad now because they don’t like Kanye West) but when I watched it a few times more I thought it was genius, the choreography and the lighting and everything, and that was before the VMAs. You Belong With Me on the other hand had a rubbish video – full of the American cliches that are forced on us Brits in their films – the nerd falling for the jock but him going out with the cheerleader. The nerd showing pieces of cardboard with messages saying ‘I Love You’ to the guy while he wasn’t looking – it was really corny. All the videos in that category were much better than hers – Pokerface, Hot N Cold, So What, aswell as Single Ladies. Kanye West raised an important point about music awards not going to the people who deserve them but all the sad general public (who value Cheryl Cole as the nation’s sweetheart despite the fact that she beat a woman up over a lollipop) can do is make immature comments about him being a gayfish.