Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards

Why it matters

September 13, 2009. The MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Taylor Swift, then 19, won Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me." As she began her acceptance speech, Kanye West climbed onto the stage, took the microphone, 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!" The interruption was, instantly, one of the most-discussed pop-cultural events of the decade. Kanye left the stage. Taylor stood there in front of a stunned audience. Beyoncé later that night, when she won Video of the Year, brought Taylor back up to finish her speech. President Obama, in an off-the-record exchange with CNBC that was inadvertently broadcast, called Kanye a "jackass." The episode was the start of the public-persona crisis that would dominate Kanye's 2009-2010, send him into a self-imposed exile, and structurally feed the manic-confessional My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy that came out a year later. You can argue the moment defined Taylor Swift's career more than Kanye's. Both arguments have evidence.