I don't watch MTV unless my wife tells me something is on that I need to see.

Well, last night she told me there was something I needed to see. I didn't look then, so she describe to me what Kanye West did to Taylor Swift (See Part 1 below). I could give two shits about either performer, but per my wife's conversation and the video I saw on the internet today, damn... he is a fucking ass.

What my wife didn't tell me was that Beyonce was classy about it (part 2) and later in the show actually gave up a large portion of her acceptance speech time to allow Taylor Swift another opportunity to accept her award.

Viacom (MTV's parent company) is denying any video hosting sites the ability to host these much discussed moments (Part 3), instead they have these clips offered as embeddable from their own website. Of course, they have commercials embedded in the clips and they are getting amazing site traffic out of this deal. While I certainly can't fault them for wanting to make money, their exploitation of this event seems well thought out. I wonder if they did anything to rile Mr. West up prior to him going on stage.

Edit 1: It was requested that I describe what actually happened. Here it goes:

Taylor Swift won the award for Best Female Video. When her name was announced she looked a bit surprised. She slowly made her way to the stage where she was handed a microphone and began her acceptance speech,

"Thank you so much! I always dreamed about what it maybe would be like to win one of these some day but I never actually thought that it would happen. Uh I sing country music so thank you so much for giving me a chance to win a VMA Award. I... I.."

The camera cut to Pink in the audience as everyone was applauding Taylor. The camera then cut back to Kanye West taking the microphone out of Taylor's hand and he began,

"Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time."

The camera switched to Beyonce who was mouthing "oh Kanye" out of disapproval. Then the camera was back on Kanye as he exclaimed,

"One of the BEST VIDEOS OF ALL TIME!"

He shrugged as to say 'whatever' and then walked off the stage.

Taylor was left standing silenced and totally shocked.

I strongly suggest you watch part 1 above. It is 90 seconds long.

Edit 2: Obama Chimes in
As if this story wasn't already a media frenzy, when President Obama was told what happened he called Kanye West a "Jackass". Sort of... You see, this in itself is another controversy. He technically said the remark "off the record" and the reporter who heard it and used Twitter to spread it had to make a retraction. It was too late though and other media sources got a hold of the message and the retraction. Read in (part 4). Audio added (part 7)

Edit 3: Kanye Apologizes
Kanye West posted an apology on his blog (part 5) and then went on Leno and apologized for being such an asshole. Leno actually brought him to a point of being speechless (part 6) when he asked him what his mother would say to him after what he had done.

-------------------------------

Links:

Part 1:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/435995/taylor-swift-wins-best-female-video.jhtml

Part 2:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/436021/beyonce-wins-video-of-the-year.jhtml

Part 3:
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/kanye-west-versus-taylor-swift-try-youtube-users-versus-viacom/

Part 4:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/09/obama-calls-kanye-west-jackass.html

Part 5:
http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/?em3106=239462_-1__0_~0_-1_5_2008_0_0

Part 6:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ofKepheEZ4

Part 7:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbatjA-N5z8

Updated the original post to show Kanye's apology and Obama calling him a jackass.

Pandajuice wrote:

His mom would definitely be disappointed.

Leno discussed that in the link provided.

Kanye was actually speechless when Leno asked him what his mom would say to him about this event.