Recently, Kanye West has been speaking out about many scary things, from his dark family past to his relationships with other celebrities. Although it feels like he only started doing this in the 2010s, he has been disrespecting other stars for years and was speaking down to female celebrities in the early 2000s.
West has spoken down to pop stars like Taylor Swift. In 2009, he jumped onstage at the VMA’s and told the vocalist her music video wasn’t as good as Beyonce’s. On one occasion, Ye even tried to demean Britney Spears, but 50 Cent stood up for her.
Spears’ 2007 VMAS performance was undoubtedly one of her worst, and even she recognised that. She received massive backlash during the show for poorly choreographed dances and mismatched lip-synching. Still, few knew the severity of her mental breakdown at the time. Unfortunately, her performance only vindicated Kanye West, who had been denied the opportunity to perform at that year’s VMAs.
During a 2007 interview with Z100 radio, Kanye slammed the VMAs for not giving him the opportunity, stating, “Why aren’t you giving me a chance, given that ‘Stronger’ is one of the No. 1 songs right now, give me a chance to give it that type of look.” He continued, “It’s almost as if they are trying to antagonise me to see if they can create a TV moment.” Furthermore, he insisted that he knew Spears’ performance would be trash due to her mental state and that, due to her condition, she truly didn’t deserve to be on the VMAs stage and wasn’t needed to open the ceremony.
West also took aim at MTV and accused them of exploitation, exclaiming, “They knew that Britney wasn’t ready, and they had her perform, so they exploited her!” Still, amid all the chaos caused by West in the aftermath of Spears’ nightmare VMA performance, 50 Cent spoke on Spears’ behalf and explained why she had been chosen to open.
During a radio interview with Ryan Seacrest, 50 Cent suggested that Kanye was completely disregarding Spears’ career and wasn’t thinking about the entirety of her discography, detailing, “He was upset. He’s not used to not being recognised. Period. [Kanye] expressed that he felt that Britney Spears shouldn’t be actually opening the Video Music Awards – almost like he forgot that Britney Spears sold 50million records. She did!”
The G-Unit founder continued, “He is not thinking about her full body of work. She deserved to headline the show better than anybody else that was on it … even in the state she is in.”
Following Spears’ performance, West felt so disrespected that the VMAs had selected her over him that he even threatened a boycott of MTV, which airs the show annually. However, while sticking it to Kanye for attacking Britney Spears, 50 Cent dismissed the call to action, unveiling, “I don’t think it’s possible. I think he got carried away in the moment. MTV doesn’t need him!”
Although 50 Cent came to Spears’ rescue after Kanye West called her 2007 performance trash, she was traumatised by the event and revisited the saga in her memoir, Woman In Me.
In her book, the ‘Toxic’ vocalist admitted that she didn’t even want to perform, revealing, “I didn’t want to, but my team was pressuring me to get out there and show the world I was fine. The only problem with this plan [was] I was not fine.”
