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Taylor Swift On That Kanye West Incident From 2009: She Thought The Crowd Was Booing At Her

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 02:36 PST, Oct 18, 2015

Taylor Swift revealed intimate details of her life in a personal, tell-all interview with GQ‘s Chuck Klosterman this week, following her first ever photo shoot for GQ.

After opening up on many details of her life, both personal and professional, Taylor Swift took a trip back in time to 2009 to that infamous Kanye West incident.

Need a refresher?

Taylor Swift was accepting an award at the MTV Video Music Awards when Kanye West jumped up on stage mid-speech, interrupting Taylor Swift to say Beyoncé should have won because she “had one of the best videos of all time.” A horrified Beyoncé Knowles could only look on in disbelief as the whole event unfurled before her.

When the incident occurred five years ago, Taylor Swift was reluctant to comment at all. It was, therefore, very telling that she was the one to bring up the incident in her interview with GQ, perhaps to show that she has moved on from the event and that it no longer holds the same emotional control over her as it once did. Hopefully so, for her sake.

It is said that Taylor Swift was reluctant to talk about the incident at the VMAs; however, as Complex noted, it was pretty clear that her song “Innocent,” written one year later in 2010, was about Kanye West.

“It’s okay, life is a tough crowd / 32, and still growin’ up now / Who you are is not what you did. / You’re still an innocent.”

Not only did Taylor Swift write this song in the wake of the events at the VMAs in 2009, but she then went on to perform at the the VMAs the following year, which Kanye West was notably absent from.

In a true “circle of life” moment, Taylor Swift warmly presented Kanye West with an award at the 2015 VMAs, when he was the recipient of the Video Vanguard trophy. All despite the fact that Kanye West told Ellen DeGeneres back in 2010 that he would never appear at an awards ceremony again.

Yes, Kanye West spoke publicly about the “Taylor Swift incident” with Ellen DeGeneres in October, 2010, almost a full year after the incident occurred. And he didn’t appear sorry at all. In fact, the only time he went anywhere near apologizing was in a completely backhanded way.

He said that his whole world “completely crashed” because of one moment, and that his outburst was fueled by “sincerity, or alcohol, whatever it is,” describing himself as “a soldier of culture,” and that he felt “convicted about things that really meant stuff to culture, that constantly get denied for years and years and years and years.”

He went on to say that he will continue to express his feelings, just as he did while Taylor Swift was receiving her award, as he feels he needs to in order to stay true to himself.

“I cannot lie about it in order to sell records.”

Speaking about the incident from more than five years ago, Taylor Swift said that when Kanye first jumped up on the stage during her acceptance speech at the VMAs, she initially thought that he was preparing to make a special presentation, given that she was the first country artist ever to win an award at the VMAs.

Similarly, when the crowd started booing during Kanye’s outburst, Taylor Swift initially thought that they were booing about her – that they agreed with Kanye and also thought that Swift shouldn’t have won the award, that it should have gone to Beyoncé, instead.

“When the crowd started booing, I thought they were booing because they also believed I didn’t deserve the award. That’s where the hurt came from. I went backstage and cried, and then I had to stop crying and perform five minutes later. I just told myself I had to perform, and I tried to convince myself that maybe this wasn’t that big of a deal. But that was the most happenstance thing to ever happen in my career. And to now be in a place where Kanye and I respect each other—that’s one of my favorite things that has happened in my career.”

Only Taylor Swift would be able to turn an incident like that around and make it into a positive memory.

Speaking of positivity, it seems that Taylor Swift, like many people, feels lonely; but, in a superstar kind of way. She spoke during her GQ interview about being around tens of thousands of people every day, and being happy to be on her own when she gets home at night.

“When I get home, there is not one part of me that wishes I was around other people.”

The hit 90s TV sitcom, Friends, does help to allay any feelings of loneliness that might otherwise be present, though. Taylor Swift admits that she draws great comfort from binge watching old episodes of Friends when she is alone at home.

“When I go home and turn on the TV, and I’ve got Monica and Chandler and Ross and Rachel and Phoebe and Joey on a Friends marathon, I don’t feel lonely.”

[Photos by Christopher Polk/ Getty Images; Jason Merritt/Getty Images]

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