Kanye West lashes out at MTV

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Washington (ANI): Rapper Kanye West has jumped to the defence of Britney Spears, and blamed MTV for ruining her career. A day after the MTV Video Music Awards held in Las Vegas, West told New York radio station Z100's JJ, on Sep 10 that the network "exploited" the troubled pop star. "They exploited Britney in helping to end her career. When Britney was opening [the VMA telecast], near the end, I felt so bad for her. I said, 'Man, it's a dirty game. This game will chew you up and spit you out,'" People quoted West, as saying.

Talking about his personal disappointment with MTV, West told Z100 that he felt misled and "betrayed" by the network, and has pledged to never work with MTV again. According to sources, West was upset with the way performances were set up and started complaining that he should have performed on the main stage and not from a private suite where many artists performed for small groups of fans throughout the telecast.

"I wasn't mad that I just didn't win any awards," West says. "For me, [MTV] made it seem like performing on the main stage was a bad thing, and the suites were just so great. It was my dream when I made 'Stronger' to open up the VMAs with a real power performance," he said." "And I just feel like I got betrayed by them. I feel like they tried to make it seem like I was so into everything that was going on in the show," he added.