Kanye West's Most Notable TV Moments

Love him or hate him, we all know that Kanye West is always an entertaining character. Whatever the situation, when he is on TV, you need to be tuning because he will most likely to be the talk of hip-hop (as well as non-hip-hop) sites the next day. We can always trust Kanye to be honest, and say it like it is.

This list of TV appearances of West prove that he is not rapper that requires a script. He is candid and will never hold back or follow the lead of TV executives trying to curb his voice. We can forever more expect his answers to questions to be honest, rather than giving us media-trained responses. 

When Kanye West is on your screen, there are no dull moments. 

Take a peek for yourself and let us know your favorite Kanye TV appearance. 

Who can forget the day that Yeezy gatecrashed pop singer Taylor Swift’s party at the 2009 VMAs?

Kanye showed he was truly a man who wouldn’t be silenced when Swift walked up to the stage to receive the Best Female Video award. She started giving the usual award acceptance spiel, but was interrupted by Yeezy. He took the microphone off the singer much to her shock, and said, “I’m really happy for you, I'm gonna let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time". The camera switched to Queen B, who was also pretty confused, whilst West moved off stage leaving Taylor Swift bewildered and close to tears. Classic.

In 2011, Kanye was a guest on the The Ellen Show and had some choice words to say about the MTV VMAs and their nomination choices, particularly because of the lack of nominations for his track “Gold Digger” and the way in which MTV wanted the rapper to perform on the VMAs that year. He spent several minutes going into a mini-rant, also criticizing the award show's choice to have Britney Spears have a big performance instead of him.

Always expect Kanye to bring his own script when it comes to TV. This is no doubt a lesson most of us have witnessed when seeing him on our screens. 

In 2005, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, A Concert for Hurricane Relief, an hour-long benefit was televised. Whilst presenting his segment with Mike Myers, Yeezy deliberately went off script to expose his true feelings about the way the President has dealt with Hurricane Katrina, saying, George W. Bush ‘doesn’t care about black people’ and much more.

“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, 'They're looting.' You see a white family, it says, 'They're looking for food.' And, you know, it's been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there…”

Kanye even got his mic muted after Myers continued to stick the script. But it didn’t matter as Yeezy had said his piece in the most candid of way he could, surprising fellow celebrity presenters as well as the whole of America.

In 2008, Kanye showed just how powerful his Graduation album was when he picked up a Grammy Award for the Best Rap Album.

During his acceptance speech however, he was rudely interrupted when the production guys in the back tried to run him off stage by playing music, Kanye was unimpressed, asking them repeatedly to stop the music. He finally got them to stop, when he started paying homage to his late mother and said, “it would be in good taste to stop the music then.”

The TV producers of Punk’d probably had a death wish when they decided that Kanye West was going to be the next victim of Punk’d in 2004.  But that said, this was way before his anger started to reach red-hot heights thanks to the unrelenting paparazzi. 

Ashton Kutcher and his team got together to play a prank on West whilst he was filming the video for “Jesus Walks”. The shooting of the visuals was interrupted by the Los Angeles Film Commission as they were a little upset about the fact that Kanye was filming about Jesus on a Sunday. Watch the video to see how Ye reacts to his $500,000 production facility being shut down and the materials getting confiscated.

West felt a need to rant on The Jimmy Kimmel show in 2013 to clarify his other rant in his interview with Zane Lowe. The rapper showed how upset he was about his difficulties with getting into fashion, and the obstacles that he was felt were preventing him from excelling. Also during this television interview, Jimmy Kimmel apologized for a not-so-amusing skit on his show which used child actors to play out the Lowe interview. As well as his concerns of making it in fashion, Kanye took the time to complain about some of his favorite people, the paparazzi.

Yeezy often looks unhappy when portrayed by the media. But when he was invited onto The Ellen Show last year he appeared calm and happy. West discussed some of the more positive developments in his life such as his engagement, the birth of his daughter North West and his strong relationship with Kim Kardashian.

This year, Yeezy gave us a highly intelligent interview when he was a guest on Bloomberg showing him in his element. Discussing everything from large corporations, creativity, Apple, to hip-hop, he spoke eloquently showing his completely entrepreneurial mindset representing rap spectacularly on mainsteam television.

In a rare advertisement, Kanye showed he has some pretty decent acting skills as he appeared in a promo for the MTV Video Music Awards in 2012. The ad included wife Kim Kardashian and comedian Kevin Hart who ran the skit, wanting to combine the three together as KevKimye!

Kanye rarely makes appearances on Kim’s reality TV show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, but when we do see him, he sure does appear in style. He showed off his creative and extremely romantic side when he organized an amazing surprise proposal on KUWTK, by inviting their families to witness him proposing to Kim K at the AT&T park on her 33^rd birthday. Surely one of Ye’s finest moments on TV.

Yeezy decided to do his mother-in-law, Kris Jenner a favor by appearing as a guest on the now defunct Kris Jenner Show (apparently even Kanye couldn't save her daytime talk show). Kanye appeared content, and a little awkward (and many of us noticed a change in his voice for this interview) in his full on discussion with Kris about his relationship with her daughter Kim, being a Christian and fatherhood. 

When Kanye was a guest on Late Night With Seth Meyers, together they took a look back at one of his hilarious skits on SNL where Kanye interrupted several different situations (all in homage of that Taylor Swift gatecrash). Ye happily took part in the sketch disrupting the Nobel Physics Awards, and a pumpkin contest. We'd include more footage of these skits, but we couldn't find them.

Kanye set the bar high when he performed his track “Power” on Saturday Night Live in 2010. With an amazing stage design and surrounded by a number of ballerinas, the performance was truly mind blowing as a feast for the eyes and ears. Ye throughout the years has shown that he doesn’t mess around when it comes to his performances, they are always planned to perfection.