This past week provided sports and entertainment fans with eyepopping, jawdropping displays of rude behavior by athletes and musical artists who exploited their priviliges as celebrity elites to abuse others. Let’s start with Kanye West at the MTV Video Music Awards…
First he has the audacity to ascend to the stage when he has no logistical, ethical or moral reason to be there. He then takes the mike from Swift’s hand and proceeds to steal Taylor Swift’s well-earned moment from her, and mars it. He further places Beyonce in an extremely awkward position by shifting attention from Swift to Beyonce. You can hear the boos from the audience as he finishes being, as he calls it, “real”. Beyonce, God love her, wins best video and graciously yields her acceptance time to Taylor Swift and in her actions of kindness to Swift, makes her own non-verbal statement of rejection of West’s behavior. Within one evening we saw the lowest and highest of good manners and graciousness.
West’s first apology via his blog is somewhat mitigated by his disclaimer that he’s “not crazy.” He’s “just real”. Please. Give all of us a break. We are so tired of rude, obnoxious tirades, tantrums and behavior semi-justified as being “real”. It’s real alright. Really, really disgusting. West makes another attempt at an apology on Jay Leno’s show…
Next on this week’s hot list of rude celebrities is tennis star Serena Williams who threatens physical violence to a line judge during the US Open:
Serena issues an apology:
I want to amend my press statement of yesterday, and want to make it clear as possible – I want to sincerely apologize FIRST to the lines woman, Kim Clijsters, the USTA, and tennis fans everywhere for my inappropriate outburst. I’m a woman of great pride, faith and integrity, and I admit when I’m wrong.
I need to make it clear to all young people that I handled myself inappropriately and it’s not the way to act — win or lose, good call or bad call in any sport, in any manner.
I like to lead by example. We all learn from experiences both good and bad. I will learn and grow from this, and be a better person as a result.
Serena’s apology is actually a good one. She makes no excuses for her behavior, there is no blameshifting or use of that heinous phrase, “If I offended anyone…”, she takes ownership of her behavior.
And finally, Roger Federer’s rude use of foul language to speak to a line judge:
No apology has yet to be forthcoming from Federer.
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Eeek! Maybe we should stop rewarding people with more airtime for abominable behavior. Serena’s apology did indeed seem sincere. The first person to whom she said ‘sorry’ was the lines woman she was rude to, not her fans.
Kanye West SAID all the right things, but still, he should have personally apologized to Ms Swift, first. From what he’s saying, he didn’t, which leads me to believe the apology is really more about rehabilitating his image than anything else. He had the rest of the awards ceremony to say he was sorry, and presumably time backstage as well. So why the delay?
West also appeared on Letterman, where he said he was going to pull back from social appearances and regroup. In other words, he’s going to rehab. Reports are he was chugging cognac all night.
Maybe he should come right out and admit that. “I was drunk and acting stupid. Maybe people aren’t responsible for their actions when they are drunk, but I surely am responsible for my choice to drink as much as I did. Therefore I am entering rehab until I can make adult decisions about my drinking.”
Actually, West was asked to leave the ceremony, and he only apologized to Swift after she appeared on The View. The guy is unbelievable. He managed, in one outburst, to humiliate Taylor Swift, Beyonce (bless her sparkly-yet-classy soul), and most of all, himself. I’m thinking the bottle of Jack Daniels he was toting on the red carpet may have had something to do with it.
I’ll bet all the money in my pockets that the whole MTV incident was staged–West, Swift, Knowles, all of it.
My opinion of Beyonce has gone up times ten. That was really nice of her to give her moment to Taylor after Taylor had it stolen from her.