With VMA coming next Monday, Billboard decided to gather oral history of everything that went down behind the scenes in The Kanye West Steal Mic From Taylor Swift. Billboard collects testimonies from producers, reporters, and MTV staff to describe everything that precedes and follows this iconic pop culture moment.
The narration begins with Kanye appearing on the red carpet on his leather shirt, clutching and gulping a bottle of Hennessy. Looking back at these pictures now and knowing they caught a moment of hunch, they took an unpleasant tone. Many witnesses who spoke with Billboard remembered being very concerned once they saw Kanye in this unusual condition. Noting his instability, they began to imagine all of these ways could end badly and conspire to ensure that nothing triggers him. When the former vice president of talent relations approached him and asked if he was okay, Kanye replied, “I’m here to live my best life.”
Another account recalled Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy calling out that Kanye was “very drunk” and negotiating whether it was a fair game to call him out on stage. It was decided that it would potentially trigger a volcano that everyone felt was waiting to erupt.
It was also revealed in oral history that Kanye was originally supposed to sit about eight rows from the stage, but when the organizers noticed that they did not have enough men in the front row, they pushed him up at the last moment.
Several accounts were given about the chaos that happened in the trucks of all the runners in the show when Kanye stormed the stage. There is a lot of panic and uncertainty about what is the best way to react. “Some people are really nervous and want to get them off the stage, but how do you do it? I won’t send many people to deal with rugby.” Kanye was finally asked to leave the building, which he was supposed to respond to politely.
The former MTV News senior correspondent explained the tension and anger in the room after the incident, especially those from P! Nk. “During the commercial break, he returned to his seat and P! Nk walked up to him and entered his face. I wasn’t close enough to hear the conversation, but he pointed his face and nodded his head back and so on, and gave him two cents about how chaotic this and then leave. Then he sits there next to Amber Rose with his arms around him, and you can feel everyone in Radio City glaring at his back. “
Former president of Viacom Media Networks, Van Toffler, remembers finding Beyoncé crying beside his father backstage and saying, “I didn’t know this would happen, I felt very bad for him.” The organizer of the event knew who would win all the awards that year – even though they determined that this did not usually happen – so Toffler chose to cheer Beyoncé by giving him a hint that he would be on stage later in the show (to receive his Video of the Year award) and will have the opportunity to give Swift a moment of redemption. “Beyonce agreed to do something very friendly. So Shakespeare’s bow was played all night.”