Kanye West Reveals the Three Moments He Believes Got Him "Blocked" From the Super Bowl Stage

Artist Kanye West is famed for his musical genius and infamous comments, and he has recently opened up about why he thinks he has never been invited to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. In a tweet rippled through social media, the rapper and producer referenced three significant moments in his life that contributed to his blocklisting from one of the biggest stages in entertainment.

West posted a candid message that day: "I never was allowed to do the Super Bowl because of three moments." After all this, these three moments, he says, eventually disqualified him from performing at the NFL's crown jewel for an entire decade.

The first moment he pointed to was his infamous comment on former President George W. Bush during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina telethon. In a moment now held up in legend, the rapper Kanye stood up on stage and said, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people," which resonated with the media and the public. West makes the case that this moment, which some viewed as bold and socially conscious, represents a pivot point in how the establishment viewed him.

Then West aimed at his 2009 VMA moment, one of the most iconic moments in history. Kanye rushed the stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for Best Female Video, taking the microphone out of Swift's hand and saying, "I'm sorry, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time." This incident is discussed and criticized for its lack of decorum and respect towards Swift, with Kanye taking intense backlash due to his actions. There, he felt, was a moment when he had spoken out about what he thought was right, but the fallout made it more complicated for him to sustain his place in mainstream entertainment.

Next, Kanye referenced his vocal support of the MAGA movement and ex-President Donald Trump. Kanye was a vocal supporter of Trump throughout the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, breaking headlines during those four years when he would visit the White House. That controversial position, combined with his comments on the president and general politics, also further distanced him from some of those who once supported him. On October 30, 2023, Kanye tweeted: "Yeah, Im like Jesus in the sense that all the people I love tried to tell me I was wrong in what would be seen as a political move, yet this was at a time when people had begun to view me in a negative light, and so by the time I made this move, I was simply too ahead of their perception of me."

"How it feels to be the best living and blocked from the main stage due to being ahead of my time," West wrote in his tweet. The comment concludes with a tongue-in-cheek note, " And I mean all of this before I went full Nazi, of course. Kanye's humor and self-awareness appear an element of his multifaceted self, which he struggles to define as he navigates how the world perceives him and his art.

Although few artists from his generation have been as scrutinized, even if not all of this scrutiny is overtly positive, West's consideration of these three events betrays a sense of frustration at the way he has been perhaps misunderstood and blackballed in some corners. Whether his claims resonate with the NFL or not, there's nothing short of controversy on Kanye West's road to victory, and that may very well be why fans love or hate him.