Kanye West - Ass Of The Year Or Set Up?
Last night like many of you I was watching True Blood rather than the MTV Video Music Awards. Then I started getting texts and e-mails telling me that Kanye West had got up on stage and interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for winning an award. The clip of Kanye is below.
After watching the clip about 30 times, I am not 100% convinced this wasn't a set up job. For a couple of years I have told you that the winners of these awards are not exactly secret. Plus, no one watches the show anymore, but this year viewership was supposed to be higher. What better way to make sure they come back next time then to have a big controversy.
Kanye always disrupts awards shows. It is his trademark. If he disrupts another one, people will just say that is Kanye being Kanye. Who comes out of this looking best? Taylor? You feel sorry for her but she doesn't come out looking best. Beyonce comes out looking best.
Kanye interrupts Taylor to talk about Beyonce and her video and how it was the best ever and Beyonce does some pretending out in the audience about how shocked she is. It is amazing that the director was that fast getting to Beyonce. Then, later when Beyonce wins video of the year she invites Taylor up on to the stage. Every single status update or Tweet when she did that said the same thing. "Oh, I hated Beyonce before but she is so classy," or people were saying how they love her now for what she did. As for Kanye? He doesn't care. If you already hated him you are going to keep hating him and if you liked him, this isn't going to change your opinion. He was the only one who could do it and get away with it. So, in the end result. Taylor gets a golf clap and some sympathy. Kanye stays exactly the same. Beyonce gets the most out of it by far, and if MTV did set it up, Beyonce will return the favor.
The people at MTV are crafty. I am not 100% convinced they didn't play a part in this.
62 comments:
I was wondering if it was a set up the second I heard about this! I bet the MTV VMAs wouldn't even get mentioned in the news if something controversial and over the top didn't happen. I just can't see someone making an ass of themselves over Beyonce not winning something.
makes sense to me.... !!
DON'T KNOW...BUT JUST BAD TASTE, POOR JUDGMENT ....
I was wondering if this wasn't the case, too.
Hmmmm... Didn't seem like Taylor Swift was in on it, however. But I guess she wouldn't have had to be.
I say hell to the yes on this one. I see everyone involved being capable of it. Like Ellen says, the VMAs need this stuff to be relevant, which MTV is increasingly not. It's become bargin-bin-celebrity-and-teenage-angst-reality central, and is no longer bleeding-edge.
The only possible flaw I see in this theory is Taylor Swift... actress? Or blind-sided?
I had the same exact feeling when I was watching it. This sounds (and looked like) an attempt to make Beyonce look good.
Maybe he and Beyonce had worked out something where he would "protest" at a different time during the show, but he got drunk and decided to get it out of the way early. lol Just a guess. Taylor Swift doesn't seem the type to play the game quite yet - it was her first time.
If it was a set-up, I don't believe Taylor was in on it.
Not a Katy Perry fan, but she summed it up so well, "F*ck U Kanye. It's like u stepped on a kitten."
I do not believe it was a set-up. I blame it on Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
declasse
I'm not sure if it were a set up either, but if it was Taylor wasn't in on it. If she were? She's in the wrong profession. That girl needs a dang Oscar. But to be fair, I can see Kanye and B doing something like this.
meh. I quit watching MTV when they let go of Martha Quinn, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, JJ Jackson and that crew. It's been downhill ever since.
Whether or not it was a set-up, I still think it was in poor taste. The only thing it really sent home to me, was what a complete a$$ Kanye is.
Pandora - I loved the Katy Perry tweet too! Pink's was pretty good.
I'm cynical, but not THAT cynical. Kanye is a douche of major proportions and totally cabable of doing this on his own.
Taylor is innocent in this. I don't think she'd ruin her first time getting something she dreamed of (Moon Man) by conspiring with douchebags.
I agree with Pandora - NPD not a setup. Also, I don't know why people keep describing Beyonce's immediate reaction as "shocked" or "mortified". She did look surprised but she was smiling. She took the win at the end as a way to look good, though, yeah. Whatever, it was nice of her even if it was for PR.
No!! it wasn't a set-up Kanye is an ass!!
Beyonce is prolly much nicer and nastier than most people want to believe, because she is friggin everywhere! Her hustle is strong...
Taylor had her moment marred and there really is no apology big enough to make it right...
I don't believe this was a set up. I think the director happened to have the camera on Beyonce because she was a nominee so they have cameras on everyone who are nominees. Poor Taylor looked so uncomfortable and embarrassed that there was no WAY she was in on it. I didn't see Katy Perry's tweet but that sums up the situation perfectly!
@Clanger Agree.
I have to admit I stayed up far too late on Twitter waiting for a spike of "Pink just beat down that mofo's arse" tweets. ;->
Haven't seen it, but apparently Pink was on Today show and said she would've beat him soundly.
On the fence about Beyonce. Whether or not she did the noble thing, she absolutely did the right PR thing.
Of course it was a set up! Why else would Taylor be waiting so conviently in the wings to re-accept her award? Beyonce being noble is about as real as The Hills, The City, or any other reality MTV tries to sell.
I'm with VikingWench - once MTV stopped showing videos, I stopped watching. Today's "popular" music sucks anyway. Give me indie stuff any day of the week!
Taylor was not in on it.
Beyonce was giggling thru the who thing. I don't think Taylor was in on it, but yeah, smelt like a set up to me. It was confirmed when Beyonce turned over the spotlight to her. Even if she herself wasn't in on the plan, a very smart person told her to take advantage and "be noble"
What I have yet to see in any video is how Kanye got the microphone away from Taylor? Or where he came from?
That's the only thing that makes it look like a set-up to me.
Taylor was certainly gracious in the face of an enormous insult.
Between the pic of him carrying the bottle in, DNfromMN's comment (good point), and the Eminem/Sascha Baron Cohen thing earlier this year, I now have to believe it was a set up.
If the negative publicity gets to be too much, he'll probably come out and say it was a set up.
Either way, his mother is turning over in her grave and now channeling Katy Perry.
I'm a bit obsessed with this. Not sure why. I don't listen to Taylor Swift, or country in general.
I think it's because this happened to a kid. For all intents and purposes, she's really just a kid.
And she isn't a bad celebrity kid, plastered all over every rag mag out there. She doesn't stumble around drunk, she recently bought pizzas for hundreds of fans waiting and signed autographs for hours (I think it was in the UK), and she appears to have her knickers on in all publicity shots - random or planned.
She busted her tail to do what she loves - write and sing music. How many idolized 'artists' out there have never written a single note of their own music?
That stunt was like watching a poor girl head off to Prom with her dream date, only to have the class Bitch tell her she wasn't pretty enough to be there.
I'd kick his sorry azz myself.
You don't step on kids or kittens.
Spiders are ok though. Fair game, the little crawlie creeps.
set up or not, taylor wasn't in on it. assuming it WAS set up, it wouldn't have worked as well if she had known.
live award shows often have "possible" reactions already loosely scripted. this was one of those moments, hence the rapid-fire cut to beyonce's reaction. (now there's a director w/ beyond-human, lickety-split reaction timing).
taylor's peeps are milking this, and rightly so. it's brilliant and it exposes her to cross-over markets. beyonce ends up looking gracious, and kanye continues to be the a-hole he's always been. he messed up w/ the "apology" tho, which reads more like a slam, and now he looks like a major bigoted ass, but he's not new to that so he probably doesn't care. narcissistic douches like that often don't.
thats juuuust what i was telling my friends last night... Im pretty sure that this was all preconceived...s.m.h
oh and yes...Russell brand really does need to kill himself...:-P
Staged. nuf said.
If MTV staged this, I think I might just have to stop watching. Poor Taylor Swift...the girl is just 19 and hasn't been involved in any negative publicity before. Yes she is perceived as the innocent but at what cost? She is new to this game and no one deserves to be put through this shit...especially by that pompous ass Kanye. Can't stand the asshole.
there's a lot of Beyonce haters out there....what a better way than to PR up her image than this?
People, these folks are actors and good at what they do.....
Remember when Bruno stuck his ass in Eminem's face? People expect Kanye to do this sort of stuff. I was actually wondering yesterday if he would pull a stunt like this because it's just expected and true to form, there he was. Why not play it to the hilt? EVERYONE involved got a boost from this last night. The publicity is everywhere today.
Brilliant move.
I don't think it was a set up but I said last night that I bet Beyonce got a text from her publicist telling her she better pull her ass from the Kanye fire and make good by doing that for Taylor. "Bitch, you need to distance yourself from that drunk mess and quick! Give that little girl her time and everything will be ok." I bought into Beyonce being nice for about 2 mins and then I came to my senses.
Definitely a staged thing.
However, noone bothered to let Taylor in on what was planned so they'd get a completely honest reaction from her.
However, that being said, it was a setup to bring positive attention to Beyonce. Her career was supposed to cross over to films with "Dreamgirls" and when her co-star walked with the Oscar and she didn't even rate so much as a nomination, I can assure you that her publicity machine started working triple overtime.
The whole immediate cut to Beyonce's reaction during Kanye's rant proves it - or the director/cameraman has superhuman reflexes (I don't buy that for a millisecond - if they had reflexes like that they sure as hell wouldn't be working as a cameraman); add to that Beyonce being "gracious" and giving Taylor another turn in the spotlight is another factor. Yeah, she was the "reason" Kanye did what he did, however how many Beyonce "haters" are now fans or at least no longer haters?
I wonder if Kanye is going to top it all off with a trip to Promises because "it's obvious that his life is out of control now" or whatever standard bullshit line they use upon entry to rehab.
Stepped on a kitten...I don't care what ENT says, I love Katy. Too funny.
What a shame either way, set up or not. We just have no class, no manners, and no respect for other people anymore. Our favorite civil liberty now is to take advantage of being the biggest possible douchebag and making everyone else accept it.
Even if Taylor Swift was in on the joke, the "joke" was to ruin her moment and make her look like a fool. She is a young girl in a shark tank and doing the bet she can.
We need to just go back to watching movies, scripted television, and reading books. Screw these narcissistic people and their undeniable need for attention. We have made their lives more meaningful than our own by buying into it.
It goes beyond the Kanye thing, too. Did you see Angelina lately?? Holy shit...we pay tons of money to watch wealthy,grown women starve themselves for God knows what reasons. This is crazy! These are terrible people for our youth to look up to.
I think the people that truly dislike the paparazzi are the ones we never see in the tabloids. There are a lot of them, too.
As far as it being considered a setup because she was waiting in the wings to come back out when Beyonce went up, I read a quote from her this morning saying that they had called her back up and told her to stand in the wings and she didn't know what was going on.
There were also numerous reports of her crying backstage, and if it had been staged, I don't think she would have bothered to carry on with it once she was out of the line of cameras.
If it was a setup, Taylor wasn't in on it. But if it was, shame on MTV for ruining that poor girl's moment for their ridiculous kneepadding of Kanye and Beyonce.
I think Beyonce was embarrassed and that's why she was kind of laughing. What's she supposed to do? Sit there frowning? She knew cameras would be on her, so she was trying to handle it gracefully.
With that said, I'm still not a fan of hers.
I agree with both of BlahFrickinBlah's posts.
Bey was told turn this around and Kanye will do the I so sowwy trip to rehab to "reevaluate his priorities" or some such...or he'll become a gay fish.
Like numerous people have already pointed out; if this was a setup - which wouldn't really be surprising - I don't think Taylor Swift was in on it. She seemed genuinely hurt.
As far as Kanye West goes, I wouldn't put it past him to do something like this - I mean, he has done it before. And as for the camera perosn being close to Beyonce, as someone esle said, they would have had cameras on all nominees to catch any good reactions, so all the director would have to do was say "cut to Beyonce!". Could it have been a publicity stunt? Absolutely. But I still don't get how Kanye would benefit from it if that were the case?
Set up or not although I am sorry for Taylor Swift I just didnt care that much. Kid or not this chick makes something like 18 mill and she will be just fine getting over this with even more fan sympathy and more fans, publicity and additional attention than before. The thing is that stupid kids vote for these awards and in the end Kanye was just rudely expressing how artists feel about who should have won. Yes it was rude and tactless and hurt her feelings but people are talking about boycotting him and MTV said he is banned from the show now which is ridiculous. And the worst part is Beyonce ever looking nice to people. Common, she did the PR thing and I actually thought that was more obnoxcious then what Kanye did, at least he was being real, she just is all about PR.
I think it is likely that the Kanye part was not staged. I don't see Kanye going along with some MTV plan to cause a stir - he does his own thing. This is totally in his character.
Beyonce having Taylor come back on the stage was not Beyonce's idea, I am sure. I have no doubt the producers scrambled and knowing that Beyonce had won the top prize (or changing the outcome so that she would), they told Beyonce beforehand to do that. Of course, Beyonce could have refused, but it looked great for her. I do like Beyonce and don't think she was pleased with Kanye.
In response to what Jasmine said...
Life is hard enough when you are a teenager, let alone being in the spotlight like that. Yes this girl makes millions of dollars, but does that give people the right to step all over her like that? She seemed extremely upset and no matter how much money she makes, I bet it hurts her just as much as it hurts anyone else when someone treats them like shit. I know that with fame comes exposure, but at what cost? How can we as a society think that its ok to treat people this way???
Oh, this totally came off as a set-up for Taylor that she and her handlers would have been in on. They've been trying to introduce her to a much much bigger audience this year -- and this was not only building on that recent rap song and onset appearance with Taylor Lautner to help make her a major cross-over star, it totally TOTALLY fed into the themes of her most popular songs, including the one she won for last night: (1) the unappreciated girl standing right in front of you who the popular people diss but who you'll finally see one day is really the one you want, and (2) she's publicly humiliated at the equivalent of her first homecoming and then, at the end, just like in a movie -- I mean did it not seem like a movie? -- she's brought back out onstage for the tear-jerker bring-down-the-house standing ovation (in costume and makeup change of course).
Beyonce is NOT nor will EVER be classy.
I agree with Angelina. Beyonce's trash. When Jennifer Hudson's family members were murdered, she had her PR people tell the media that she attended the funeral when she was actually out of the country.
According to Jennifer's cousin, Beyonce was the only big celebrity Jennifer's worked with who didn't send any condolences. No flowers, no card, no anything. She's the ultimate bitch.
Poor Taylor if that was an act she deserves an Oscar not the damn MoonMan.
I still would have paid damn good $$$ to see sweet little Taylor beat him in the head with her MoonMan. Just once and have her say,"Get off the stage you Douche.
This is my moment and your drunk ass needs to sit the F-CK down."
Come on that would have gotten MTV WAYYYY more ratings then that shit they pulled.
I'm not sure if it was a set-up, but I thought it was interesting that Taylor and Beyonce had the same colored dresses when Taylor came back out. That orange-y red is not the most popular color for dresses and it struck me as a pass the torch deal.
This was absolutely a set-up. NBC (with MTV's full knowledge and approval) has gambled big time on the success of The Jay Leno Show and needs it to be a ratings smash tonight - it's first episode. Guess who's scheduled to perform? Kayne, JayZ, and Shakira. I don't think that Taylor Swift was in on it. They needed someone to have a genuine reaction for any plausibility. Kayne is an attention whore and Beyonce is as opportunastic as they come.
The hook to watching this year's VMAs was the tribute to MJ. That and Janet's performance - as well as the others - are what we SHOULD be talking about.
It's not about who comes out looking best. All he and B did was to insure Taylor has another million records sold by the end of this week. What did K lose? He was supposed to perform and instead was kicked out. Everyone is tired of his ass and will think twice before inviting him anywhere. It's not like there's a shortage of hip-hop artists.
So once again there is a controversy at the VMAs--which are a yearly highlight for a tv station that no longer plays a note of the videos it is honoring. It is undoubtedly the one night they actually have an audience, so a set up wouldn't be a surprise. No matter what Beyonce did, I still hate her video and still don't listen to or like Kenye West, and am probably one of the few people in the world who think that Taylor Swift can't sing and is indeed another manufactured teen star.
100% staged. i hated, HATED the reaction of the crowd when taylor swift came out at the end of the show. it was sooo cheesy and ingenuine. i felt like putting my fist through the tv screen and bitch slapping every celebrity who was acting like this was some awe inspring moment.
"Kanye West - Ass of the Year or Set-up?"
Yes.
Merlin, I brought up Dreamgirls today. After Jennifer Hudson's family was murdered, there was a blind item that the person (Jennifer) was very disappointed that her more famous co-star didn't bother to offer her condolences in public or private. After seeing it, I wondered if Beyonce's reaction seemed a bit "off." It seemed like others in the audience were enraged but she kept smiling. Oh well, it did get people talking and watching but I agree that they could have picked someone else to pick on.
I spoke with my dollars. I bought Taylor Swift's disc last night and it is actually pretty good.
Absolute Set-Up.
MTV planned this to happen. I don't know and care who was in on it (obviously Kanye was...) but MTV and Kanye have been incahoots since Through the Wire.
Remember that year of the VMAs when he was filmed throwing a hissy fit because he didn't get perform on the VMAs and Justin Timberlake did?
That was obviously set up. He returned the next year and was supposed to have this sensational return.
Last year, we got the Bruno and Eminem thing happen.
This year it's Kanye again.
It's all a ploy to remind MTV viewers that they don't show music videos anymore, so don't be upset because we are going to repeatedly show this shitty ass award show over and over again...
It's also a ploy to get everyone and their mother's and their bosses to youtube it.
I hate MTV. Really, their executives sold their souls years ago. But good for Taylor, Kanye, and Beyonce taking advantage of this opportunity since today no one was talking about Rep. Wilson's outburst at the speech last week, or Iran, or anything like that...
No, we were talking about Kanye West. (who is going to be on NBC tonight for the premiere of Leno...interesting...)
I don't care whether it was cold or set-up - Taylor did not deserve that - and I don't even know her music.
I know for a fact Taylor wasn't in on it. Believe me or not, I am friends with someone in her band. They had no idea. Now, afterwards, MTV did tell her to stay backstage and then Beyonce's dad told her what was going to happen to give her a chance to pull herself together and prepare her statement. So yeah, the second part she did know about, but she was blindsided by Kanye. Also by Beyonce? The woman who refuses to turn around for an ambulance? Who knows?
Frankly, my opinion still stands.
Taylor Swift was unaware, Kanye's outburst was planned, although I'm kinda on the fence about Beyonce's involvement other than to be the object of Kanye's rant.
However, I'm now thinking Beyonce's father was the one who decided to orchestrate it into a PR bonanza. But then, opportunity knocks...
I say Kanye was fed the list of winners, and that's how he set the whole thing up.
And one last thing... there's an old saying that really applies here if you stop to think about it.
"I don't care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right". The addendum to that is "I don't care what they say about me as long as they're talking about me - and spell my name right".
Even if was a set-up.
Something is WRONG with that guy.
To me, the things that makes it seem like a set-up is the fact that he managed to even get on that stage.
Is there no security? Are people allowed to just walk up there whenever they want? Even being who he is, I would think there would be someone stopping him from walking up there and just taking the mike. I havent been to a VMA so I dont know, but at galas there is usually people standing ready to save people from themselves, especially if there is alcohol involved!
Has anyone been to a VMA? Do you know what security is like?
Well it didn't work, MTv, I still can't stand Beyonce.
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