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Kanye West takes the microphone from Taylor Swift - Source: Reuters -
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A day after Kanye West earned widespread scorn for upstaging
Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, the remorseful rapper
said he would take time off to reflect on his behaviour.
"... I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how
I'm going to make it through the rest of this life, how I'm going
to improve," he told Jay Leno on the premiere episode of the
comedian's new comedy show.
West has already
apologised twice for hijacking the 19-year-old country
starlet's moment in the spotlight at the high-profile awards show
in New York.
But he told Leno he has not yet been able to apologise to Swift
in person.
He was loudly booed when
he leaped on stage and grabbed the microphone
from Swift as she was accepting the statuette for best female pop
video for You Belong With Me.
He declared it should have gone to Beyonce's Single Ladies video,
which he called one of the best videos of all time.
Swift stood in the background, her face frozen.
After West handed her the microphone, she attempted to say
something, but the sound had been cut off and she was escorted off
by a stage manager.
The outburst on the live telecast was seen by some 27 million
viewers - the largest TV audience since 2002 for the annual MTV
Video Music Awards, MTV said.
Video of the incident was seen by some two million times on the
MTV.com website alone.
West told Leno that the aftermath had been extremely difficult for
him to deal with.
"My entire life, I've only wanted to give and do something that I
felt was right," he said, according to a transcript provided by
NBC.
"And I immediately knew in the situation that it was wrong, and
it wasn't a spectacle or just - you know, it's actually someone's
emotions, you know, that I stepped on. And it was very - it was
just - it was rude, period."
West wrote on his website that he was "soooooo sorry", adding
"Welcome to the real world!!!! Everybody wanna booooo me but I'm a
fan of real pop culture!!!"
Earlier on Monday, he issued a second statement, likening himself
to Ben Stiller's awkward character in the comedy movie Meet the
Parents.
Swift, the biggest-selling artist of 2008 in the United States with
more than four million albums, has kept a low profile since the
incident.
"I've been getting so many text messages and everybody's been
really nice," she said.
"So I've had a really, really fun night. It's been interesting
definitely. It's definitely been an interesting night," she
said.
She is to appear this week on daytime chat show The View.
Fellow musicians were outraged at West's behaviour.
Singer Kelly Clarkson called West a sad human being, while
American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert wrote on his Twitter page,
"Kanye needs to chill. He freaks out every year. It ain't that
deep, man."
There were few words of support for West, even from his fans.
"Kanye West is a great musician and a great producer but he has lost his mind. He was in the wrong," wrote Lisa on the Usmagazine.com message board.
