Kanye West exiled himself to Japan after Taylor Swift feud because ‘all of America hated’ him
West famously ran onto the stage at the 2009 MTV VMAs ceremony to protest Swift’s Best Female Video win
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has revealed that he did a “personal exile” by going to Japan after crashing Taylor Swift’s 2009 MTV Video Music Awards speech.
During Drink Champs’ second part of their explosive interview with the 44-year-old Donda rapper, West revealed that he exiled himself as “all of America hated” him.
West, who travelled to Japan with designer Virgil Abloh, said that everyone was pointing out how wrong his actions were.
“Everyone was like, ‘You wrong for this one, you won’t win this,’ by telling me, ‘You shouldn’t have ran on-stage, you were rude,’ god forbid,” West recalled.
More than a decade ago, West famously ran onto the stage at the 2009 ceremony to protest Swift’s Best Female Video win, arguing that the trophy should have gone to Beyoncé for “Single Ladies”.
The incident gave way to a chain of events involving Swift, West and his wife Kim Kardashian West, who were subsequently involved in a number of high-profile squabbles.
In 2020, during an interview with Nick Cannon, the Yeezy collaborator recalled what motivated the 2009 incident.
“Right now, God is giving me the information and he ain’t gave me no other information other than this information, so that means he wants me to say this now,” West explained.
“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.”
He continued: “I would’ve been sitting in the back, they wouldn’t have made it the first award and they wouldn’t have made it so ridiculous of an idea, because I had never heard of this person before then. And ‘Single Ladies’ is one of the greatest videos of all time.”
West also confirmed that he was drunk during the show, adding: “I was only drinking Hennessy because I didn’t want to go to the awards show because it was a set-up.”
West and Swift were involved in another feud over the rapper’s song “Famous.”
In 2016, Kardashian shared a clip that showed Swift approving a lyric in which West raps: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex.”
Kardashian claimed the clip proved Swift was a “snake” because the pop star said she had not been informed that West would call her a “b****” in the song.
