Kanye West is bringing Taylor Swift back into his narrative. More than 15 years after memorably crashing the singer’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards-kicking off a complicated dynamic between the two in the years to come-the rapper cited the incident as one of the reasons he hasn’t been invited to perform during the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
“I never was allowed to do the Super Bowl because of three moments,” the rapper wrote in a since-deleted post on X April 7, which was later reshared on social media. “George Bush don’t care about Black people. The Taylor Swift movement moment. Wearing a MAGA hat.”
Kanye-who shares kids North, 11, Saint, 9, Chicago, 7, and Psalm, 5, with ex-wife Kim Kardashian-went on to speculate further about how his personal views may have affected his professional opportunities.
“How it feel to be the best living and blocked from the main stage because of being ahead of my time,” he continued.
E! News has reached out to reps for Kanye, Taylor and the NFL for comment.
Following the VMAs incident, Kanye, 47, and Taylor, 35, eventually buried the hatchet and often supported one another at public events. However, things took a turn with the February 2016 release of his song “Famous,” leading to a public debate over whether he gave her a heads up about the track’s most suggestive lyric. “Kanye did not call for approval, but to ask Taylor to release his single ‘Famous’ on her Twitter account,” Taylor’s rep told E! News at the time. “She declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric, ‘I made that b—h famous.'” Months later, Kim-who was married to Kanye from 2014 to 2022-released several snippets of a conversation about the track between him and Taylor, but the singer asserted that the leaks didn’t discredit her.
“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that b—h’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened,” Taylor wrote on Instagram, adding, “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.” As for Kanye’s halftime aspirations, he did make an appearance of sorts during the 2025 Super Bowl in February, when he starred in a 30-second Yeezy commercial directing viewers to the brand’s website. At the time of the ad’s airing, the only product available on the site was a white t-shirt featuring a black swastika.