"I remember being like, 'Are you okay?' Because I knew him very well and it seemed very out of character for him to be on the carpet like that," former MTV News vice president of talent relationships Whitney-Gayle Benta recalled to Billboard.
"The VMAs are very different from the Grammys, but I'd never seen him in any way with a bottle of liquor, and I think he'd been well-trained by his publicist that he was going to be photographed. I definitely said something to him. I was like, "What's up with you?" And he was like, 'I'm here living my best life'.
"In that moment I think (West) was a bit … I don't want to say uncontrollable, but invincible, and at the time to keep the peace we just didn't challenge him. I just remember thinking, 'This is not going to end well'."
THE MOMENT IT HAPPENED
The executive producer of the 2009 VMAs, Jesse Ignjatovic, and former MTV News correspondent, Jim Cantiello, and Benta, all recalled watching from a monitor and going into a state of shock.
"I had huge expectations from all those numbers and then the show started and it kind of happened. It was act one … a very long act one, with Madonna speaking, then Janet (Jackson). And then we went into that award, and then the Taylor/Kanye thing happened," Ignjatovic said.
"I was shocked. I'd never seen anything like that … especially with our winner and another huge artist on stage. It wasn't like, 'there's a fan up there, go get 'em!'"
"We were watching on a monitor from our basement spot, like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, what is going on?'," Cantiello added.
"I vividly remember the cutaway of Beyoncé half-smiling in disbelief and her mouth like, 'oh Kanye!' It's now a gif that is used in every comment ever in a Kanye story. I remember thinking, 'this is just for female artist, not video of the year — why is he so bent out of shape about this?'"
2009 VMA's director Hamish Hamilton, who was in a production truck when it went down, said everyone behind the scenes went into panic.
"There was an awful lot of strange energy in the truck, like, 'Oh my God, get him off! Get him off! What is he doing?'
"A number of people were really nervous and wanted to get him off the stage, but how do you do that? I wasn't going to send a bunch of people to rugby tackle him. I turned around in my chair and I said, 'guys, this is TV gold!'"
After the initial shock, the brains behind the VMAs started to question whether it was a big, fat set up that they weren't looped in on.
"I had that moment, like, 'did we know this was going to happen? Did we set up Kanye?' "We gave Kanye a seat in the front row … we know he jumps up on awards shows. The thought definitely crossed my mind,
"Then I saw Taylor's reaction, and Beyonce's reaction, and the audience disbelief in the room, and I thought, 'no, no, MTV would never pull anything like this, because this is potentially hurting artist relations on three of the biggest artists in 2009 right now."
SWIFT AND BEYONCE CRYING BACKSTAGE
Hamilton said they went to a commercial break and had to quickly figure out what to do next, especially as Swift was due to perform in the next act.
"There were three conversations I remember half hearing: 'Okay what happens to Kanye now? How do we make sure Taylor's okay? And how do we make sure Beyoncé's okay?'," Hamilton recalled.
"The biggest concern was for Taylor, and making sure she was cool with it.
"Once it happened, we went to commercial break and I said to Dave Sirulnick (TV producer), "Dave, you need to go get Kanye out of the building and I need to go see Taylor, her mum and manager," former Viacom president Van Toffler added.
"Her mum and she were crying, and I profusely apologised and I said, 'I'm sorry, we didn't know. I know you have to perform in the next act and let me think about a way we can make it right for you. We're dealing with him now and I'm so sorry it ruined your moment'.
"I didn't anticipate I'd have a crying artist and mum to deal with — literally right before she has to go out on Sixth Avenue and stand on a car and sing her song."
Toffler then said he found Beyonce in tears, before hatching a plan to save the night and give Swift her moment.
"(Beyonce) was like, 'I didn't know this was going to happen, I feel so bad for her'," Toffler said.
"And that's when it started to click in my head, and maybe hers, about potentially having the whole arc play out in that one night.
"I think perhaps for the only time in history at the VMAs we knew who was going to win the awards, we had a plan for it (but did not tell the artists ahead of time). At some point I let her know that she was probably going to be up on the podium at the end of the show for an award, and wouldn't it be nice to have Taylor come up and have her moment then?
"I had to indicate to her that she needed to stay, and perhaps this is a way to have this come full circle and let (Swift) have her moment. I would normally not say anything, but I had two crying artists.
"After (Swift's) performance, I had to go back to Taylor and her mum and say, 'this is what could potentially happen at the end of the evening and you can have your moment to do your speech'.
"There was a lot of begging, but fortunately she agreed to stay, and Beyonce agreed to do a wonderfully gracious thing. So the Shakespearean arc played out over the course of the evening."
'HOW DO WE GET RID OF KANYE?'
MTV's Montgomery said they found West "hunched over" in his seat in the front row.
"You could tell he could feel the weight of everyone's stares," he said.
"Within the next 5-10 minutes, he was ushered out of his seat and I followed behind him — and out in the darkened hallways of Radio City, I saw him going up and having a very long, heated conversation with Dave Sirulnick about what happened.
"Dave saw me trailing behind and told me I wasn't allowed to go up there. I waited at the foot of the stairs and watched them have a very animated conversation. Kanye was very upset about this, and he was kind of shocked that he was being asked to leave.
"I just remember it being a very chaotic moment where everyone was (going), 'is this really happening?' and everyone being very angry."
Former MTV writer Jayson Rodriguez said his in-house journalists were feeding him details, like "P!nk giving Kanye the middle finger".
And P!nk wasn't the only one who was furious at the rapper.
Cantiello said celebrities piling into the press section were making comments about West.
"I remember the All-American Rejects (singer) Tyson Ritter, and he was like, 'Kanye's a jacka**' or something like, 'what the hell's he doing?'
"I remember Billie Joe from Green Day had strong words like, 'What the hell was that? Let the girl have her moment!'"
And while they reconciled for a few years there, Swift and West's feud, which has since involved West's wife Kim Kardashian, has been one of the biggest and highly publicised celebrity rivalries ever.
Thanks 2009 VMAs. Gotta love ya.
