As
Taylor Swift was giving her Best Female Video acceptance speech for "
You Belong with Me",
Kanye West went on stage, took the microphone from her, and said: "Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you, 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 for "
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". As the live audience booed, West shrugged his shoulders, handed the microphone back to Swift, and walked off stage as he raised his middle fingers toward the audience. West was subsequently removed from the show. Various celebrities and industry figures, as well as prominent political figures including then United States President
Barack Obama, former President
Jimmy Carter, and future President
Donald Trump condemned West for his verbal outburst at Swift. West apologized on his blog and during an appearance on
The Jay Leno Show.
Emil Wilbekin, managing editor of
Essence magazine, argued that West went too far with his actions, compared to the past: "I think that it was not Kanye's place to speak for Beyoncé or to ruin Taylor Swift's moment... 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." Powers was cynical about the onstage embrace Beyoncé and Swift shared, calling it "staged" and stating that it added "another layer of meaning to an already complicated moment. Now this controversy was about women sticking up for each other, too." The outburst resulted in a
meme consisting of images of West being superimposed onto other images with text in the style of his interruption as a
snowclone ("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")." West later referenced the incident in his 2016 single "
Famous", controversially claiming that he made Swift famous through it. ==See also==