Kanye West claims it was God who directed him to interrupt Taylor Swift's 2009 VMA speech to demand that the singer's Best Female Video award be given to Beyonce instead.
For 11 years, the rapper has avoided addressing the incident directly, but he has now opened up about the infamous moment in an interview on Nick Cannon's podcast. West insisted it was all part of God's master plan.
"If God didn't want me to run on stage and say, 'Beyoncé had the best video,' he wouldn't have sat me in the front row. I would've been sitting in the back," West said in the interview on Tuesday, per Billboard.
"He wouldn't have made it the first award. And [He] wouldn't have made it so ridiculous of an idea 'cause I had never heard of this person before that night," he continued. "And 'Single Ladies' is like one of the greatest videos of all time ... And I was only drinking Hennessy because I didn't want to go to the awards show 'cause it was a setup!"
West also spoke about his 2016 hospitalization during his Saint Pablo Tour.
The 43-year-old was taken to the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at the University of California, Los Angeles, after police responded to a call for help. Sources close to West said he was exhausted from a "spiritual crisis." His hospitalization followed a series of public rants and the cancellation of the rest of his concert tour.
"The first time I was put into the hospital in 2016, I actually started reading the Bible. That was part of what God hit me with," West said. "And you know, God ... has a calling on all of us, and He uses us in different ways. I'm not going to lie to you, I like being cool. I didn't go into an environment to come off uncool."
West added: "When I went to the hospital the first time, one of the things I wrote down was 'start a church in Calabasas.' And we sang Jesus' name to the hills in the center of the city of Los Angeles."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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