Kanye West Escaped After Taylor Swift VMA 09 Incident, “It Gave Me An Opportunity To Go Away”

Written By S. Samuel

Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West opens up about his post-Video Music Awards 2009 televised interruption of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech in the October XXL Magazine.

Kanye West
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In the cover feature, West recalls the post-effects of his public move.

“The relationship with the public and with your fans is like the relationship with your girlfriend. How could I not, at a certain point, be like, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been at the awards show. I’m sorry.’ Not that I don’t deserve to get beat up or change who I am inside, to make sure that that doesn’t happen again…I knew I wasn’t in a great spot publicly after the incident, but I would just block it out and work as hard as possible and let my work be my saving grace. In a way, I had thrown a Molotov cocktail at my own career, and it gave me an opportunity, for the first time, to go away and find out who I was. Because I felt very alone.” (XXL Magazine)

West recently said how much of an impact the incident would have on his life moving forward.

“It was just such a hard, shell-shocking year. Because there was no bad intent on my part, it’s just more bad timing. It was purely good intent. So to have been dragged through that for a year, it’s just amazing. I mean, I don’t know if it’s over. I’ll probably wear the scar for the rest of my life.” (Beat Crave)

Last week, West issued a public apology to Swift via Twitter.

“Man I love Twitter… I’ve always been at the mercy of the press but no more… The media tried to demonize me,” Ye tweeted yesterday (September 4th).

“They wanted yall to believe I was a monster in real life so you guys wouldn’t listen or buy my music anymore.”

“I feel like they were waiting for the opportunity to go in all the way on me and when it came they beat me to a pulp”

“I want to win there hearts back so I can continue to bring my take on culture to the masses with a clean opinion.”

“It starts with this…I’m sorry Taylor.” (Kanye West’s Twitter)

At last weekend’s Video Music Awards, Swift sang a song believed to be directed toward West.

Swift signaled she was ready to move on from last year’s VMA fiasco with Kanye West. Swift issued the musical equivalent of an official pardon, beginning her performance with a video montage of West’s interruption and transitioning into lyrics that included “Who you are is not what you did” and “Today is never too late to be brand new.” West acquitted himself well in the night’s final performance, delivering an equally serious song that owned up to his gaffe with lines like “Let’s have a toast for the scumbags.” (Chicago Tribune)

The October XXL Magazine will hit newsstands on Tuesday, September 28th.

Check out last year’s Taylor Swift/Kanye West incident below:

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Written by S. Samuel

Steven Samuel is the co-founder of SOHH.com.

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