| 2009 MTV Video Music Awards | |
|---|---|
| Date | September 13, 2009 |
| Venue(s) | Radio City Music Hall, New York City, New York |
| Host(s) | Russell Brand |
| Network | MTV and VH1 |
The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards took place on September 13, 2009, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, honoring the best music videos from June 19, 2008, to June 29, 2009.[1] Comedian Russell Brand hosted the event for the second time in a row. The awards were held a few months after Michael Jackson died. The VMAs dedicated the night to Jackson with a retro-music video montage as a tribute. Madonna opened the show with a speech about Jackson. Janet Jackson made an appearance at the VMAs to pay musical tribute to her late brother and honor his career. For the finale of the show, they showed the trailer of Michael Jackson's This Is It.[2]
On August 4, the nominees were announced. Beyoncé and Lady Gaga led the pack with 9 nominations each, closely followed by Britney Spears with 7.[3] Beyoncé, Green Day and Lady Gaga got 3 awards each, the most of the VMAs.
The show was watched by a total of 9 million people, a 17% increase over 2008's show and the biggest ratings since the 2004 award show. This year was also the first year since 2006 to return to the Radio City Music Hall for the awards and unlike in 2008, where the show was held in a warehouse, this show was at a real venue with a live audience.[4][5]
The show was notably infamous for an incident involving Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift's speech for winning the award for Best Female Video ("You Belong With Me"), which spawned the "I'mma let you finish" internet meme.[6]
Winners are in bold text.[7]
Beyoncé – "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"
T.I. (featuring Rihanna) – "Live Your Life"
Taylor Swift – "You Belong With Me"
Lady Gaga – "Poker Face"
Eminem – "We Made You"
Matt & Kim – "Lessons Learned"
Green Day – "21 Guns" (Director: Marc Webb)
Beyoncé – "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" (Choreographers: Frank Gatson and JaQuel Knight)
Lady Gaga – "Paparazzi" (Special Effects: Chimney Pot)
Lady Gaga – "Paparazzi" (Art Director: Jason Hamilton)
Beyoncé – "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" (Editor: Jarrett Fijal)
Green Day – "21 Guns" (Director of Photography: Jonathan Sela)
Beastie Boys – "Sabotage"
Nerds in Disguise – "My Own Worst Enemy"
Eight local "MTV VMA Best Breakout Artist Awards" were awarded. The table below lists the number of bands considered in each city, the three finalist nominees selected by MTV for each VMA, and the winner in bold:[8][9] The winners were featured on MTV on local cable during the live VMAs and received featured coverage on MTV and MTV2 (or MTV Tr3́s in the case of the LA contest).[8] The winners did not receive a moonman. Neither the awards nor the winners were listed on the mtv.com "Winners" page, nor were they mentioned elsewhere on mtv.com.[10]
| New York City | Bay Area | Atlanta | Chicago | Boston | Philadelphia | Washington, DC | Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
of over 190 entries |
of 129 entries |
of over 150 entries
|
of over 150 entries
|
of over 150 entries
|
of over 150 entries
|
of over 170 entries
|
of 116 entries |
While Taylor Swift was making her acceptance speech for winning Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me", Kanye West got onto the stage and interrupted her; he took her microphone, saying: "Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!", referring to the music video of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". Beyoncé looked shocked, and West was then booed by the audience.[20] Angered, he flipped off the crowd.[21][22] During the commercial break, singer Pink walked by the rapper and reportedly shook her head in disgust.[23] West was later removed from the remainder of the show.[21][22] After Beyoncé won Video of the Year, she asked Swift to come on stage to complete her speech.[24][25] Later, West wrote an apology on his blog (which he later removed).[26] Various celebrities and industry figures, including Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Spencer Pratt, Heidi Montag, Katy Perry, Joel Madden, Adam Lambert, Kellie Pickler, Ryan Seacrest, Chris Jericho, Jeremy Fall, and Dane Cook, spoke out about the incident through Twitter[27] and other outlets, condemning West for the verbal outburst.[21][28] Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton said, "Taylor Swift deserved that award, damnit [sic]. It is what THE PEOPLE voted! My heart broke for her, she looked so sad at the end of that moment."[21] Rapper 50 Cent, who has a history of feuding with West, said winning the award was Swift's special moment that night and that West took it away. "Even an apology can't replace what it feels like for the very first time receiving that award. Now in her head, My first award was Kanye West. And it's damaging," he said.[29] Donald Trump called for a boycott on West.[30]
In what was an off the record part of an interview, West's behaviour even received condemnation from U.S. President Barack Obama, who had invited West to perform at the Youth Inaugural Ball in January.[31][32][33] TMZ later obtained audio of the comment.[34] "You know, it was like, she's getting an award and what are you butting in? ...The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person, she's getting her award and what's he doing up there? He's a jackass," said Obama.[32][33] The "off the air" comment forced ABC, whose news anchor Terry Moran leaked the information, to issue an apology after the Internet quickly "became abuzz over the stunning remark".[31][32][33] Additionally, West was criticized by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter for the outburst.[35] The day following his outburst, West posted a second apology on his blog;[26][36] he appeared on The Jay Leno Show later that night, where he delivered another apology to Swift which was met with cheers from the crowd.[37] "Dealing with the fact that I hurt someone or took anything away, you know, from a talented artist—or from anyone—because I only wanted to help people," he said. "...My entire life, I've only wanted to do and give something that I felt was right and I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong."[37] He became emotional, seemingly tearing up, when questioned what his late mother would have thought of the incident.[37][38]
Emil Wilbekin, managing editor of Essence.com, said West may have gone too far with his antics this time. "I think that it was not Kanye's place to speak for Beyoncé or to ruin Taylor Swift's moment," said Wilbekin. "It's OK for Kanye to rattle off about himself, but I think he crossed the line when he decided to speak for other people."[21] Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times said that "from one vantage point, it was a case of chivalry gone horribly wrong" as West meant to "stand up for" Beyoncé.[39] She added that when Swift accepted Beyoncé's invitation to return to the stage, "The two women [engaged in] a quick sisterly embrace, adding another layer of meaning to an already complicated moment. Now this controversy was about women sticking up for each other, too."[39]
On September 15, 2009, two days after the outburst, Swift talked about the matter on The View. Asked what she was thinking the moment it happened, she stated:
Well, I think my overall thought process was something like, 'Wow, I can't believe I won, this is awesome, don't trip and fall, I'm gonna get to thank the fans, this is so cool. Oh, Kanye West is here. Cool haircut. What are you doing there?' And then, 'Ouch.' And then, 'I guess I'm not gonna get to thank the fans.'[40][41]
Swift described how she had to get over the shock quickly. "You know, I'm not gonna say that I wasn't rattled by it," she said. "But I had to perform live five minutes later, so I had to get myself back to the place where I could perform."[40] She said that West had not spoken to her following the incident.[41] Following Swift's appearance on The View, West contacted her to apologize personally; Swift said she accepted his apology.[41][42] The night of the awards show, Swift became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award.[42]
West's outburst resulted in an Internet meme which saw images of West being superimposed onto other images alongside text in the style of his VMA outburst ("X is one of the greatest Y of all time", or variants thereon, in some cases preceded by "I'm really happy for you" and/or "I'mma let you finish").[6]
The incident was parodied at the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, in which after Swift won the award for Music Video of the Year, Carrie Underwood, who was hosting the awards with Brad Paisley, told Paisley that she thought his video for "Welcome to the Future" was a great video as well. Paisley thanked her and then thanked his producers for the video, at which time singer Little Jimmy Dickens stepped on the stage and pushed Brad Paisley away from the microphone, saying, "Excuse me. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, I'll let you finish later. Now, Brad Paisley, I know you had a nice video and all that, but Taylor Swift had the best video of all time. You go girl!" Swift laughed in her seat. Paisley then remarked, "What kind of security do we have if a 4'9" 88-year-old man gets by it?" Earlier in the awards show, Underwood and Paisley's monologue was a duet paying tribute to the song "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys", in which the first line was "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Kanye". Additionally, when Taylor Swift hosted Saturday Night Live, one part of her monologue (which was done in the form of a song ostensibly about all the things that she was not going to talk about) included Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis as security men charged with preventing Kanye West from coming on stage. She closed her monologue by saying "Kanye West is not here."[43] Additionally when Taylor Lautner, who then was rumored to be dating Swift, hosted SNL, in his monologue he beats up a cardboard cutout of West. The incident is also referenced in Eminem's single No Love, which he says "Man, get these whack cocksuckers off stage/where the fuck is Kanye when you need him?/Snatch the mic from 'em, bitch, I'mma let you finish in a minute, yeah/the rap was tight/But I'm 'bout to spit the greatest verse of all time".[44]
In September 2010, West wrote a series of apologetic tweets addressed to Swift including "Beyonce didn't need that. MTV didn't need that and Taylor and her family friends and fans definitely didn't want or need that" and concluding with "I'm sorry Taylor." West also revealed he had written a song for Swift and if she did not accept the song, he would perform it himself.[45] Swift said that she received a call from the rapper and accepted.[46] She would respond in the form of a song, "Innocent" from her 2010 album, Speak Now.[47] After the incident, West went into seclusion for months, before releasing new music in 2010. Both artists are said to have benefited from the incident, both receiving commercial and critical acclaim for their 2010 albums, Speak Now, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.[48]
In addition to the West controversy, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys were performing "Empire State of Mind", but towards the end of their performance, Lil Mama jumped and danced on the stage uninvited. She soon later issued an apology.[49]
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