Kanye West’s Infamous Stunt of Interrupting Taylor Swift's VMA Speech Was Predicted on a SNL Sketch

Kanye West's infamous stage interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards was really something that Saturday Night Live anticipated two years before. Recently, The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast reviewed West's participation in the September 2007 season premiere of Saturday Night Live with hosts Andy Samberg, Akiva Shaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Seth Meyers.

When West stopped Swift at the event, the Lonely Island member—who was a writer for Saturday Night Live for six years—thought the rapper was following his 2007 SNL skit, but he soon realized that West was being serious. In the skit, West shows up unannounced at many award ceremonies—including a state fair's Best Pumpkin contest, the Nobel Prize in Physics, and the Kids' Choice Award for Best TV Show—to claim he rightfully deserves to win.

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Schaffer said during the podcast, "[West] was a little bit famous for bad award show behavior — for being either a poor loser or speaking out on behalf of others — but the Taylor Swift famous moment you’re thinking I’m talking about has not happened yet. That happens a year from now." Despite this, Schaffer claimed that West's lack of proper awards etiquette was 'known'—in fact, the rapper had even proposed the concept for a comedy that Schaffer and Seth Meyers (then-head writer of Saturday Night Live) collaborated on. Schaffer saw West's onstage appearance as a sly return to the Swift era when he snatched the microphone away from Swift.

Schaffer further added, "I remember thinking at the VMAs, live, ‘Oh this is so funny, but he’s kind of ripping off our bit. I wish he had called us to like, help us work on this.'" After that, Schaffer started to wonder whether the piece really belonged to Meyers, West, or himself. He further explained, "I was like, eh, but it's really his bit. I like, went through the whole process of like, but it's really his bit, ‘cause he’s the one that called said, ‘I’d like to do something about that.’ We just cracked the code on what the actual sketch would be and that's fine." Schaffer didn't get that West was being serious until he was 'midway through' his outburst.

During the MTV Video Music Awards 2009, the Best Female Video award went to Swift's You Belong With Me instead of Beyoncé's Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It). However, after Swift started accepting the speech and giving her acceptance speech, West snatched the microphone away from her and said that Beyoncé was more deserving of the honor. As reported by Rolling Stone, West said at the time, "Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!" By the time the camera returned to Swift, West had already grabbed the microphone and was speeding off, leaving her stunned.