Actor Taylor Lautner can’t seem to let go of Kanye West‘s infamous interaction with singer Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, more than a decade after the fiasco shocked viewers.
Lautner sat down with his wife, Taylor Dome — so many Taylors! — during Wednesday’s episode of “The Squeeze” podcast to reflect on his time in Hollywood, his body image and what he would change about his past.
“If you could go back to one moment in your life, what would that moment be and what would you say to yourself?” Dome asked her husband.
The answer? The 2009 VMAs.
On Sept. 13, 2009, Lautner presented then-girlfriend Swift with the award for best female video. All was well until the rapper interrupted her speech.
“I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time,” said West, who now goes by Ye, while then-newcomer Swift withered onstage behind him.
As the interaction unfolded, Lautner stood behind the musicians thinking it was all just a “practiced and rehearsed skit,” he said Wednesday.
“Why else would Kanye West be jumping up on the stage interrupting Taylor Swift?,” he asked. “It just didn’t make sense.”
It was only after Swift turned around and he saw her face that he realized what had happened.
“I probably should’ve said something,” he said on the podcast. Lautner’s wife assured him that he made up for it during his “Saturday Night Live” opening monologue in December 2009.
The actor opened his “SNL” hosting debut addressing rumors about his relationship with Swift and displayed how he would have handled the VMAs debacle if given another chance. Showing off his flashy combat skills, he beheaded a mannequin with West’s face and rescued another dummy bearing Swift’s mug.
“I’m sorry, Kanye, I didn’t mean to knock your head off there,” he told the first mannequin.
Lautner and Swift ended their brief romance that same year.
West, who has been embroiled in multiple controversies over his antisemitic remarks in recent months, apologized to Swift days after the VMAs incident.
“It was rude, period,” West said on the premiere episode of NBC’s “The Jay Leno Show.” “I don’t try to justify it ’cause I was in the wrong.”
Then he apologized again a year later, blaming the media for demonizing him, likening himself to the character Ron Burgundy and calling Swift “just a li’l girl with dreams like the rest of us.”
The incident at the 2009 VMAs marked the beginning of a tense relationship between the two artists. Since then, West and Swift have engaged in several public feuds, including the drama around the rapper’s 2016 song “Famous” and its controversial music video.
“Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination,” Swift said in a statement about “Famous.” “I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.”
