Kanye West 'sorry' for MTV stunt

Last updated 09:17 15/09/2009

MTV Music Awards 2009

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Reuters Zoom

STORMING THE STAGE: Kanye West takes the microphone from best female video winner Taylor Swift as he praises Beyonce at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in New York.

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Rapper Kanye West has apologised for a second time after celebrities and fans poured scorn on his hijacking of teen country star Taylor Swift's moment in the spotlight at the MTV Video Music Awards.

West was booed loudly when he leaped on stage and grabbed the microphone from Swift, 19, as she was accepting the trophy for best female pop video for You Belong With Me at the awards ceremony.

West declared it should have gone to Beyonce's Single Ladies video, which he called "one of the best videos of all time".

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 2 million times on the MTV.com web site alone.

"I feel like Ben Stiller in (the movie) Meet the Parents when he messed up everything and Robert De Niro asked him to leave ... That was Taylor's moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry," West wrote on his blog.

West had earlier written that he was "soooooo sorry", adding "Welcome to the real world!!!! Everybody wanna booooo me but I'm a fan of real pop culture!!!".

He will get a chance to speak publicly about the incident in a previously scheduled appearance on comedian Jay Leno's TV show on Monday evening.

Swift, the biggest-selling artist of 2008 in the United States with more than four million albums, said little on Sunday about the outburst.

"I've been getting so many text messages and everybody's been really nice. So I've had a really, really fun night. It's been interesting definitely. It's definitely been an interesting night," she said.

Swift is to appear on Tuesday on daytime chat show The View.

Fellow musicians were outraged at West's behavior. 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.

* Watch footage of the incident below: