Kanye West: 'I Bled Hard' Over Swift Debacle
NEW YORK (AP) — Hip-hop star Kanye West is still feeling the pain over his ambush of Taylor Swift last year -- and he's expressing his pain all over Twitter.
West unleashed a torrent of emotions on his official Twitter account Saturday, acknowledging once again that he was wrong for jumping on stage, grabbing the microphone from Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards and saying her trophy should have gone to Beyonce.
But the rapper-producer said that he has experienced enormous pain, been the subject of death wishes and suffered tremendous setback to his career.
"How deep is the scar ... I bled hard ... cancelled tour with the number one pop star in the world ... closed the doors of my clothing office," he tweeted.
The multiplatinum, Grammy-winning superstar had been one of the decade's most successful and critically acclaimed stars, despite sometimes boorish behavior and meltdowns at other awards shows when things did not go his way.
However, when he upstaged Swift -- the then-teenage darling of pop and country music worlds --the public had had enough. There was tremendous backlash against West -- even President Barack Obama was caught calling him a "jackass."
At the time, he went on Jay Leno's prime-time show to apologize and said he still had not recovered from his mother's death two years prior. He said he would be taking time off from the public eye.
That time off came sooner than expected. He canceled a joint tour with Lady Gaga that fall, apparently due to low ticket sales. On Twitter, West talked about the backlash.
"I'm the guy who at one point could perform the Justin Timberlake on stage and everyone would be sooo happy that I was there," he wrote.
After the incident, he said, "People tweeted that they wish I was dead ... No listen. They wanted me to die people. I carry that. I smile and take pictures through that."
West said he's now "ready to get out of my own way. The ego is overdone."
He also apologized to Swift again, and said he has written a song for her that he hopes she will perform.
"If she won't take it then I will perform it for her," he said.
West is working on a new album that is supposed to come out sometime this fall. A recent member of Twitter, West has been an active user, posting not only his feelings, but new songs and other updates. He has over 900,000 followers since he joined earlier this summer.
"Man I love Twitter ... I've always been at the mercy of the press but no more ... The media tried to demonize me," he tweeted Saturday.
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