While country singer Taylor Swift was accepting the award for Best Female Video, West rushed on stage and snatched the microphone out of her hand, saying “I’m sorry, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!” Swift was stunned and the audience was outraged.

West had begun the evening drinking from a bottle of cognac as he made his way down the red carpet to the awards show.

He told Leno he will “take some time off” to thing about how he’s going to “make it through the rest of his life.”

West also said “I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong. And it wasn't a spectacle, you know. It was actually someone's emotions, you know, that I stepped on and it was very, it was just, it was rude, period.”

West’s mother unexpectedly died two years ago during a surgical procedure and Leno asked him what she would have thought of his behavior, almost bringing West to tears.

“…you know, I deal with hurt and, you know, so many, you know, celebrities, they never take the time off, and I’ve never taken the time off to really, you know, I just, music after music and tour after tour on tour, and I’m just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else’s hurt.”

West expressed his wish to apologize personally to Swift, and according to ABC 7 News, he did so after the country singer appeared on the ‘View’ Tuesday morning.

According to the report, Swift has accepted his apology, but would not elaborate on the conversation

The rap star interrupts the country singer’s acceptance speech for ‘best female video’ award to say Beyonce should have won

Rap star Kanye West has apologised to teenage country singer Taylor Swift after he interrupted her acceptance speech at last night's MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) for 'best female video' to say Beyonce should have won. Swift, who won for her single You Belong With Me, was in the middle of talking about the difficulty country artists face in crossing over to the MTV audience when West leapt on stage and snatched the microphone out of the 19-year-old's hands.

"I always wondered what it would be like to maybe win one of these someday, but never actually thought it would happen," Swift was saying, when West interrupted.

"Taylor, I'm really happy for you," said West, "and I'm gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time." The rapper was referring to Beyonce's video for Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It). The crowd at New York's Radio City Music Hall began to boo, and Beyonce was clearly embarrassed.

Swift eventually got the chance to finish her acceptance speech when Beyonce won video of the year and called Swift back onstage saying, "I'd like Taylor to come out and have her moment". Russell Brand, the flirtatious British comedian who hosted the event, offered Swift a "shoulder to cry on" as he closed the show.

West, who was jeered each time his name was mentioned during the rest of the ceremony, was later ejected from the awards show. He had been spotted drinking at the start of the night, swigging Courvoisier as he made his way up the red carpet.

Last night Kanye West used his blog to issue an apology to Swift and her mother, who had given the rapper a dressing-down backstage. In his signature all-capitals style, West wrote: ""I'M SOOOOO SORRY TO TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER FANS AND HER MOM... I'M IN THE WRONG FOR GOING ON STAGE AND TAKING AWAY FROM HER MOMENT!"

West has 'lost it' at previous music events, taking umbrage at losing out on awards at the Grammys, the American Music Awards and a previous VMAs night. This is the first time he has complained on someone else's behalf.

Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Green Day dominated the awards, winning three 'moonmen' each. Madonna opened the show with a Michael Jackson tribute, and Janet Jackson was later joined on stage by her brother's tour dancers to recreate some of Jacko’s most memorable music videos, including Thriller, Bad and Smooth Criminal.

The fan voting notwithstanding, West declared that Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time, even as a horrified Beyoncé looked on in utter disbelief.

Not surprisingly, he was vociferously booed by the audience and, not surprisingly again, he gave the audience the finger on the way back to his seat.

If Swift was upset by West's rude interruption, it wasn't evident in her subsequent performance of her hit song You Belong With Me.

Considering MTV's proclivity to rig such seemingly spontaneous but scandalous moments, evident from the Bruno / Eminem stunt at MTV Movie Awards in June, it is moot if there was a cause for Swift to be offended.

Earlier the Country music hottie made jaws drop as she arrived at the event in New York riding a horse-drawn carriage wearing a asymmetrical silver sparkle gown. The glamorous singer joked that her horses' names are "V" and "MA."

Shakira and Taylor Lautner presented the award to 19-year-old Swift who competed for the honor against Beyoncé's Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), Katy Perry (Hot n Cold), Kelly Clarkson (My Life Would Suck Without You), Lady Gaga (Poker Face) and P!nk (So What).

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – More than 19 million Americans watched a mix of veterans like Paul McCartney and new stars like Taylor Swiftperform at the Grammy Awards on Sunday -- an 11 percent increase from last year, according to preliminary television ratings on Monday.

The 3 1/2-hour music awards show on CBS was seen by 19.05 million U.S. households, compared to 17.18 million in 2008, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research.

Former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and bluegrass artist Alison Krauss came away with a leading five Grammys for their "Raising Sand" collaboration on a night that also saw performances and trophies for British band Coldplay, singer Jennifer Hudson, British newcomer Adele and rapper Kanye West.

"The Recording Academy put on quite a show -- an unprecedented 24 performances and a range of artists that appealed to 'tweens,' teens, young adults and (baby) boomers," said Jack Sussman, an executive vice president at CBS Entertainment.

Stevie Wonder teamed up on stage with the Jonas Brothers andDisney idol Miley Cyrus, 16, performed with teen country sensation Taylor Swift in a show opened by rock band U2.

Behind the scenes, Grammy organizers scrambled to fill the opening left by R&B artist Chris Brown, who dropped out at the last minute and was arrested on charges of assaulting a young woman, thought to be his girlfriend, singer Rihanna. Rihanna also was a surprise no-show on the music industry's biggest night.

The increased viewer ratings provided some cheer to an industry fighting a losing battle to maintain album sales in an era of legal and illegal digital downloads.

Last year's Grammy ceremony audience was the third smallest since the event first aired for a national audience in 1971.

Ann Powers, pop music critic of The Los Angeles Times, said Grammy winners were "shoved aside to make room for more and more music" in a jam-packed broadcast.

"This (show) was obviously designed to make a point: that pop's vitality isn't simply about big winners, it's about the great wide mess of styles and sounds that fill the marketplace," Powers wrote in her review on Monday.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bill Trott)

By James Montgomery
Well, there's really no denying it now: Britney Spears really is back! Back to selling tons of records, at least.
Her Circus album will debut at #1 on next week's Billboard albums chart, selling just under 505,100 copies. It's Spears' fifth album to debut at #1 on the chart, and it sold nearly twice as many copies as last year's Blackout album, which was denied the top spot on the chart by the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden.

Circus' first-week sales total is certainly big, but it's only the sixth biggest opening of 2008, behind albums like Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, AC/DC's Black Ice, Coldplay's Viva la Vida, Taylor Swift's Fearless and T.I.'s Paper Trail. Still, it outpaced the first-week numbers of some of Brit's pop peers, including Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce, Mariah Carey's E = MC2 and Miley Cyrus' Breakout.
Interestingly enough, the Brit-sanity was so high among album buyers that Blackout also managed to return to the charts, selling more than 4,600 copies to land at #198.
Spears' manager, Larry Rudolph, told The Associated Press that the success of Circus really does signify Brit's triumphant return. "At the end of the day, I think she is America's pop princess, and the world's pop princess, and this just reconfirms it to everyone who doubted it," he said. "Professionally, she's feeling great. ... It's great for her to hear that she's got a #1 album again."
Those sentiments were seconded by in a statement from Jive Records, Britney's label. "We're absolutely thrilled for Britney," the statement reads. "The response to Circus is a testament to how great the album is, and to how connected and supportive Britney's fans are to her and her music."
Swift's Fearless lands in the #2 spot on the albums chart for the second-straight week, selling 193,500 copies. Beyoncé's Sasha Fierce is at #3, with sales of more than 152,800 copies. Last week's chart champ, Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak, drops to #4, with sales of close to 141,700 copies. Nickelback's Dark Horse rounds out the top five, selling 133,400 copies.
The rest of the top 10 features the "Twilight" soundtrack at #6; the week's other big-name debut, Akon's Freedom at #7; the soundtrack to "High School Musical 3" at #8; the ubiquitous hits collection Now That's What I Call Music! 29 at #9; and David Cook's self-titled effort at #10.
Aside from Circus and Freedom (which sold 110,600 copies), other notable debuts on next week's chart include Scarface's Emeritus (#24, with 42,000 copies sold), Neil Young's Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 (#40, with 26,400 copies sold) and the soundtrack to Beyoncé's new movie, "Cadillac Records" (#66, with 15,600 copies sold).