.jpg)
Taylor Swift, Kanye West, and Beyoncé are all at the Grammys for the first time in years, and this particular awards show matchup is reminding fans of the infamous 2009 VMAs debacle that was a crucial inflection point in Swift and West's respective careers.
There were signs of this chaotic gathering: the day before Grammys 2025, Kanye West — who legally changed his name to Ye in 2021 — posted screenshots of his Instagram Story showing that he now only follows one person. (Alongside some continued problematic social media behavior.) You don't need three guesses to land on Taylor Swift, of course, a woman who he just can't seem to leave alone.
A quick recap of their history: at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City, a 19-year-old Taylor Swift was awarded Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me.” She had barely begun her speech when West leapt on stage to utter the words that would create a butterfly effect: “Yo, Taylor. I’m really happy for you. Imma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time,” he said. Cue: Awkwardness, Beyoncé looking horrified, booing, backlash on the internet for West, pity for Swift. Even President Obama weighed in.
West apologized the next day on his personal blog, writing in part, ““I’M SOOOOO SORRY TO TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER FANS AND HER MOM. I SPOKE TO HER MOTHER RIGHT AFTER AND SHE SAID THE SAME THING MY MOTHER WOULD’VE SAID. SHE IS VERY TALENTED! I LIKE THE LYRICS ABOUT BEING A CHEERLEADER AND SHE’S IN THE BLEACHERS! …………………… I’M IN THE WRONG FOR GOING ON STAGE AND TAKING AWAY FROM HER MOMENT!…………….. BEYONCE’S VIDEO WAS THE BEST OF THIS DECADE!!!! I’M SORRY TO MY FANS IF I LET YOU GUYS DOWN!!!!”
In the 2020 documentary Miss Americana, Swift talked about how the moment was formative. “At the time, I didn’t know they were booing him doing that," she said. "I thought that they were booing me. For someone who’s built their whole belief system on getting people to clap for you, the whole crowd booing is a pretty formative experience.”
And that's to say nothing about what would come after — the tentative peace treaty, the 2015 phone call that would be spliced up by Kim Kardashian and dissected by the internet, West's 2016 “Famous” music video featuring a nude Swift lookalike, Swift's continued alleged ruminations on their feud as recently as her TTPD song “thanK you aIMee.”
In a 2023 TIME interview, Swift said of that time in the mid-2010s, "You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar. That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
Now, Swift, West, and Beyoncé will all seemingly be seated inside the Grammys ceremony, ostensibly within at least a hundred yards of each other. The last time this happened was at the 2015 Grammys, pre-"Famous" fallout. The potential for chaos is extremely high.
West entered the Grammys 2025 red carpet with his wife Bianca Censori, whose outfit for the evening consisted of a completely transparent slip dress and massive fur coat. People on social media clocked his arrival immediately, with a few alluding to the still unannounced Reputation (Taylor's Version) re-recording.
It's unclear whether he'll make it inside the ceremony however. An early rumor made its rounds around the internet that West had been escorted out of the building, but a source told Variety that rumor is "not true” reported that West was not escorted out — as one rumor went — but instead “walked the carpet, got in his car and left.”
At Grammys 2025, West is nominated for Best Rap Song, while Swift is up for six Grammys around The Tortured Poets Department. Beyoncé, likely wholly unbothered by this situation, is nominated for 11. She remains the most nominated artist in Grammys history.
