Kanye West claims “God” told him to interrupt Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009.
The Heartless rapper infamously ran on stage at the music awards ceremony more than a decade ago while Taylor – who was just 19 at the time – was accepting the award for Best Female Video for her song You Belong with Me, because he believed Beyonce deserved the trophy instead.
He said at the time: “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!”
And now, Kanye has claimed his actions – which sparked a lengthy feud between himself and Taylor – were the result of a higher power “giving me the information”.
He said: “Right now, God is giving me the information. If God ain’t want me to run on stage and say Beyonce had the best video, he wouldn’t have sat me in the front row.
“I would’ve been sitting in the back. It wouldn’t have made it so ridiculous of an idea because I had never heard of this person before, 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 because it was a set-up.”
And although he says it was God who influenced his decisions in 2009, he claims he didn’t start to “read the Bible” until after his hospitalisation in 2016.
He added: “God brought me to my knees multiple times. The first time that I was put into the hospital in 2016, I actually started reading the Bible. That was part of what God hit me with. You know, God has a calling on all of us and he uses us in different ways.”
Kanye also insists he doesn’t want his newfound connection to God to appear “uncool” with his fans.
Speaking to Nick Cannon for an episode of his Cannon’s Class podcast, the Bound 2 hitmaker – who plans to run for President of the United States in this year’s election – said: “I’m not gonna lie to you, I like being cool. I didn’t go into an environment to come off uncool.”
West has previously confirmed in interviews that he has bipolar disorder.
In 2018, the cover of his Ye album featured the line: “I hate being bipolar. It’s awesome.”
He later said in an interview: “I had never been diagnosed until I was 39. But like I said on the album, it’s not a disability, it’s a superpower.”
Speaking to Vogue in 2019, Kardashian spoke about her husband’s struggles and said he wasn’t on medication.
Kanye West has claimed he’s been “trying to divorce” his wife Kim Kardashian since 2018. Video / Cover Video via AP …
“For him, being on medication is not really an option, because it just changes who he is,” she said at the time.
“Right now everything is really calm. But we can definitely feel episodes coming, and we know how to handle them.”
Kardashian said in the same interview: “I think some of the hurtful things that I read online, ‘What is she doing? She’s not stopping him …’ Like it’s my fault if he does or says something that they don’t agree with?
“That’s my husband,” she said. “I share every opinion that I have and let him know when I think something’s wrong. Or if it comes to him being in the middle of a bipolar episode, I’ll do everything to be supportive and help to calm the situation.”
In an interview with David Letterman, West once explained what it was like to go through an “episode”.
“When you’re in this state, you’re hyper-paranoid about everything,” he said.
“Everyone – this is my experience, other people have different experiences – everyone now is an actor. Everything’s a conspiracy.
“You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you’re being recorded. You feel all these things,” he said. “You pretty much don’t trust anyone.”
