Inside Taylor Swift and Kanye West’s dramatic feud after he ambushed her at the VMAs

Taylor Swift and Kanye West have been embroiled in one of the most notorious feuds in music history for more than a decade, with there being no sign of the pair reuniting anytime soon.

It all started back in 2009, when an uninvited Kanye rushed onstage during Taylor’s acceptance speech for Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards. While he apologised for the incident, the rapper later retracted his statement.

Kanye and Taylor’s feud all started on September 13, 2009. Taylor was delighted when she received the Best Female Video for her hit track You Belong With Me. But as she was giving her acceptance speech, Kanye climbed the stairs up to the stage to interrupt her words. In a now-infamous speech, the rapper said: “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.”

Taylor later broke her silence about the incident as she spoke to waiting reporters. “I was standing on stage and I was really excited because I’d just won the award and then I was really excited because Kanye West was on stage … And then I wasn’t excited anymore after that,” she said.

The next day, Kanye addressed the incident during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. “I immediately knew in the situation that it was wrong and it was a spectacle,” he said.

The musician said the outburst was due to a mixture of “sincerity and alcohol”. He added: “It’s actually someone’s emotions that I stepped on. It was very, it was rude, period. I’d like to be able to apologise to her in person.”