On 13 September 2009, Taylor Swift won Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me" at the MTV Video Music Awards, becoming the first country artist to win the award. Her acceptance speech was famously interrupted when Kanye West stormed the stage to declare that Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" deserved the honour instead, producing one of the most talked-about moments in awards show history and overshadowing Swift's win itself.

The incident occurred at Radio City Music Hall in New York and quickly became a cultural flashpoint, discussed by late-night hosts, news commentators and even then-President Barack Obama, who called West a "jackass". Swift, then still relatively new to global stardom despite prior wins at the ACM, CMT and later CMA awards that year, later revealed she initially thought the audience's boos were directed at her rather than West, calling the experience "formative". Beyoncé's video went on to win the night's top prize, Video of the Year.