A somber, sober and remorseful Kanye West appeared on the premiere episode of NBC’s The Jay Leno Show (US TV how) on Monday, September 13th, to explain his perspective on the MTV Video Music Awards incident the previous night that prevented 19-year-old country singer Taylor Swift from completing her award acceptance speech.
Originally, Kanye was just slated to perform “Run This Town” with Jay-Z and Rihanna. Before the performance, however, Leno announced that Kanye wanted a minute to speak in a brief, unplanned interview.
“I’m just dealing with the fact that I hurt or took anything away…from a talented artist,” a clearly regretful Kanye said. “I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong…it was rude, period.”
When asked when he realized that he made a mistake Kanye said “Soon as I gave the mic back to her and she didn’t keep going.” He also said “I’d like to be able to apologize to her in person.”
Leno also asked Kanye what his late mother, Donda West, would have thought about the incident. A speechless Kanye blankly stared into space. After a long silent pause, Leno, followed up “Do you think she’d be disappointed?”
“Yeah, uh, obviously I deal with hurt…I’m just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else’s hurt,” Kanye said.
Kanye then remarked “I need to just take some time off and analyze how I’m gonna make it through the rest of this life, how I’m gonna improve.”
With that Leno introduced the performance, Kanye slid on his shades and joined Jay-Z and Rihanna on stage.
Written by Shaira B.
