Kanye West
Gossip

For the first time since the abrupt cancellation of the much-touted Lady Gaga-Kanye West tour, the former is speaking out, saying the two remain good friends.

"I didn’t drop Kanye," the singer said on SIRIUS XM's Morning Mash Up Friday. "When you’re really friends with somebody, you can make a difficult decision."

Their decision to cancel their co-headlining tour just weeks before it was set to kick off November 10 "was hard on both of us," she said, not giving a reason.

Theories posited for the tour getting axed range from poor ticket sales in the aftermath of Kanye's outburst at the VMAs to creative differences between them.

Lady Gaga says there was no falling out with Kanye West.

"When we were talking, I said, 'Even though this isn’t happening right now, I’m going to still go out on the road,'" she said. "He’s been very supportive."

As for what the possible hermaphrodite's tour, sans Kanye, will entail?

"I'm playing [to] just as many people in each city that I would have played on Fame Kills, but the ticket price is much lower," she said with a laugh.

"The difference between someone like myself and someone that’s three or four albums deep, is I'm still new. And my fans are so amazing and so loyal. They’re not normal top 40 radio fans, they’re like crazy punk rock fans."

"They come with lightning bolts and wigs and faint all over the place. They’re the coolest in the world. I want them to see a brilliant, amazing, life-changing show."

Here's a portion of Lady Gaga's interview ...

Rumors that rapper Kanye West died in a car accident late last night sparked a massive online frenzy but are completely bogus, from everything we can tell.

In fact, it looks like the rumors were used to sling anti-malware scam. What losers. This is the lamest stunt since Balloon Boy (although it's far less costly).

Users searching for more info on the fictitious fatality are liable to get redirected to sites distributing spyware, malware and "scareware," researchers warn.

The rumor itself reportedly originated on notorious image board 4chan, the seeding ground for the Anonymous campaign against Scientology and others.

PHEW: Kanye West is not dead. He is just fine, thank you.

Bogus reports, claiming Kanye West is dead after an accident involving two luxury cars in L.A., subsequently on social network sites Facebook and Twitter.

These reports didn't themselves point to malware-infested sites but made the topic of West's supposed demise a trending topic on Twitter, Google, etc.

Amazingly, some people believed it and even more amazingly, some people wrote hateful things about Kanye West, thinking his demise was the real thing.

The man may be a giant tool, but he remains a gifted artist who is basically harmless and besides, the guy died (or so you thought). So some respect!

It was a moment everyone talked about for an entire week and will not soon forget, either. A moment that inspired much wrath and online video parodying.

As Kanye West stormed the stage at the MTV VMAs to declare that Beyonce should have won Best Female Video over Taylor Swift, we were dumbfounded.

So was Beyonce, who is now speaking about it for the first time.

"Well, I knew his intentions, and I knew he was standing up for art; and he told me before, when they said the nominees, he's like, 'You have this award,'" Beyonce, 28, recalled to O: The Oprah magazine editor at large Gayle King.

SIDE NOTE: If he's standing up for art, he's at the wrong award show. They're completely arbitrary! He may be an even bigger jackass than thought.

Beyonce, who was named Woman of the Year at the Billboard Awards over the weekend (Kanye would approve), said it went down like this that night:

Kanye keeping a (somewhat) low profile. [Photo: PacificCoastNewsOnline.com]

"When they didn't call my name, he was, like, completely shocked," Knowles says of West's reaction. "And when he walked on the stage, I was like, 'No, no, no!' and then when he spoke, and I was like, 'Oh, no, no, no!'"

Like her husband Jay-Z, who defended West as passionate, she doesn't condone how that passion translated into potentially hurtful actions that evening.

Knowles, who handed the mic to Swift after winning Video of the Year later that night, added, "But in the end, it ended up being a great night, and Taylor Swift did get her moment, and I didn't have to make an acceptance speech!"

After his outburst, Kanye West apologized multiple times on his blog, to Jay Leno and to Swift, and declared he was taking time away from the public eye to "analyze how I'm gonna make it through the rest of this life and improve."

He's putting his money where his mouth is, at least for now. It was announced last week that his Fame Kills tour with Lady Gaga had been canceled.

It's unclear if Kanye West truly felt bad about his interruption of Taylor Swift at last month's Video Music Awards - but he likely will now.

The rapper's much-publicized tour with Lady GaGa has been canceled, as reports indicate ticket sales were lagging. One can only surmise this was due to VMA backlash directed at West.

Lady Gaga thinks Kanye West is a "good guy," just not someone she wants to tour with. [Photos: PacificCoastNewsOnline.com]

Sources also claim Kanye and GaGa's representatives got along with each other worse than Jon and Kate Gosselin, while other insiders say the female singer was the one to pull the plug on the planned concerts.

She'll likely set up dates in smaller venues now, free from the Kanye drama.

Fans that had bought tickets to the joint performances can get a refund.

Embroiled in a public relations nightmare, a freakishly-dressed, possible Hermaphrodite might not be the first person we'd want in our corner.

But Kanye West has few friends these days, so he'll have to settle for Lady GaGa.

Speaking to a Las Vegas radio station today about the rapper, who is still receiving flak for his crashing of Taylor Swift's VMA speech two weeks ago, GaGa said:

"I would say he’s a good guy and everybody makes mistakes, and he feels so f-cking bad. He really does... Everyone likes to focus on gossip, but he’s changed music and he’s really prolific and an incredible person, and I think it’s unfair to judge somebody on one mistake they’ve made.”

West and Lady GaGa are set to tour together, so she has a soft (likely, poorly-dressed) spot in her heart for him.

“He’s really kind of shown me a lot, as a friend, planning this tour - it’s all about the fans... I felt like that [VMA] moment really portrayed him in a way that he really isn’t. It was just a random moment.”

What do you think, readers? Is it time we forgave Kanye and moved on?

September has been a wild month for bizarre, inappropriate outbursts and YouTube Hall of Fame moments, ranging from music to sports and even politics.

Which was the worst meltdown of them all? Let's review the contenders:

• U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) wasn't a celebrity until his "You lie!" outburst during President Obama's health care speech. That was an all-timer.
• Serena Williams, tennis legend, completely imploded with a profane tirade at a judge in the U.S. Open semifinals, leading to her disqualification.
• Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Music Video Awards and belligerently said Beyonce's video was way better.

None of the above are likely to live down these infamous tirades anytime soon. But which was the most inappropriate? Vote in THG's survey below ...

Whose outburst was the most inappropriate?

The only person yet to weigh in on Kanye West's Taylor Swift ambush at the MTV VMAs has finally said his piece, thanks to a BBC Radio 1 DJ who got ahold of him.

"It's an awards show," Jay-Z said, dismissing the controversy surrounding his collaborator and good friend Kanye. "He's just a super passionate person."

That's a nice way of saying "jackass."

Jay-Z, the husband of Beyonce, who Kanye was giving props to during his rant on stage, did acknowledge that, "Of course it was rude, it was her moment."

But, "that's the way he felt. It was rude, but the way they're treating him… He's on the cover of every paper. He didn't kill anybody. No one got harmed."

No. No one got harmed. Including Kanye himself. If he can blindside a cute, very talented 19-year-old, why can't the rest of the world take him to task?

Jay-Z has Kanye West's back ... to a point.

Jay-Z, who was at the center of some party-crashing drama of his own (thank you Lil Mama) continued to walk the line when defending his friend, saying:

"It just wasn't appropriate. It wasn't fair to Taylor at all."

But qualifying that with, "at the end of the day, we're gonna celebrate him for his passion more than vilify him. As he matures, he has to balance that."

Still, Jay-Z said he doesn't back West's promise to take a break: "I don't think he should lay low. I think he should move on and have a brilliant career."

Whose side are you on?

A night after ambushing Taylor Swift on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards, somber Kanye West told Jay Leno he is going to try to take some time and figure out his issues, to try to understand what the heck made him react like that.

Well, Stephen Colbert has it all figured out.

Last December, the Comedy Central figure launched Operation: Humble Kanye in an effort to knock the celeb world's perennial egomaniac and sore loser down a peg.

On The Colbert Report in the aftermath of Kanye's outburst this week, he thinks his long-running operation may have had something to do with the blowup Sunday.

Stephen Colbert reacts to Kanye's meltdown as many of us have.

Was the outburst actually directed towards Colbert? Stephen thinks so! Why is Kanye going after Taylor Swift, and not the people who actually beat him for awards?

Why would the jackass not go after Eninem, Beyonce or whatever ate Lady Gaga? Colbert believes he knows why. Because he and Taylor Swift are totally friends.

Makes perfect sense to us. We feel enlightened.

Follow the jump for a video of Colbert's rant ...

Continue Reading...

President Barack Obama's candid thoughts about Kanye West have provoked a debate over standards of journalism in the age of social media such as Twitter.

They're also sparking some hilarious parodies.

ABC News says it was wrong for its employees to Tweet that Obama called West a jackass following the rapper's ambushing of country star Taylor Swift.

The network said its employees overheard a candid discussion between the president and CNBC's John Harwood that it didn't realize was off the record.

E-mails shot around among ABC about Obama's comments, with at least three employees Twittering to spread the news before the interview even aired.

When ABC authorities found out about the Obama Tweets, they had them taken down after about an hour. But the news was out and the damage done.

ABC apologized to the White House and CNBC.

During informal banter before an interview began, Obama was how his two girls felt about Kanye hijacking Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs.

No one can accuse the President of being out of touch on this issue.

"I thought it was really inappropriate," Obama says. "The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She's getting her award. What's he doing up there?"

A questioner chimes in, "Why would he do it?"

"Eh, he's a jackass," Obama said, and was met with laughter from several people, prompting the President to quickly realize he may have gone too far.

"Come on guys," he said, subtly urging them to keep the comment private and to "cut the president some slack. I've got a lot of other stuff on my plate."

It's fitting that Obama was overheard commenting on Kanye, whose outburst was described by some outlets as giving Swift "the Joe Wilson treatment."

Wilson, a South Carolina Republican Congressman, was issued a formal rebuke by his colleagues following his heckling of Obama's speech last week.

Here's a brief, but hilarious video of Kanye's outburst interspersed with the President's health care speech, right as it was interrupted by Wilson ...

It was pretty much accepted as fact that President Barack Obama said Kanye West is a jackass for his infamous VMA stunt, but there's audio confirming it now.

Obama's comments are even funnier than you think, too.

The Kanye remark was recorded just before Obama went on camera to conduct an interview with CNBC, and was not part of any sort of formal interview.

Before the interview began, Obama was shooting the breeze in the studio and was asked about Kanye's antics, which he described as "really inappropriate."

Of Taylor Swift, whose acceptance speech West inexplicably hijacked Sunday, Barack said she "seems like a perfectly nice person" and "didn't deserve that."

He then offhandedly summed up Kanye perfectly, saying, "Eh, he's a jackass."

Barack Obama's assessment of Kanye West is accurate and hilarious.

Perhaps the President of the United States was inspired by his interviewer referring to Kanye's ambushing of Swift as "giving her the Joe Wilson treatment."

After making the jackass remark, Obama asks "Where's the pool?" Someone in the background says, concurrently, "That's what Pink said!" Classic all around.

Obama recalled his last interview mishap, in which he was chastised for his ninja-like reflexes and killing an innocent, unsuspecting fly while cameras rolled.

"Cut the President some slack," he said.

To his credit, West has issued about 17 apologies since he rushed the stage Sunday, most of which appear sincere, and the latest of which Swift accepted.

Check out the off-the-record Obama audio here ...