Swift became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video in 2009.[114] Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents.[115] In the event's press room, Swift, a fan of West's music,[116] said that she did not have "any hard feelings" toward him.[117][118] The incident received much media attention and inspired many Internet memes.[119] A few days later, Swift told an interviewer that West offered her a personal apology, which she accepted: "He was very sincere."[114] She refused to discuss the incident in subsequent interviews so as not to make a "bigger deal" of it: "It happened on TV, so everybody saw what happened ... It's not something I feel like we need to keep talking about."[120] It has been said that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity."[121]
Swift won four Grammy Awards in 2010, from a total of eight nominations.[122] Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, while "White Horse" was named Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance.[123] She was the youngest ever artist to win Album of the Year.[124]
During the 2010 Grammy Awards ceremony, Swift sang "You Belong with Me" and "Rhiannon" with Stevie Nicks. Her vocal performance received negative reviews and sparked a widespread media backlash.[121][125] Her vocals were described variously as "badly off-key," "strikingly bad" and "incredibly wretched."[126][127] While Caramanica of The New York Times found it "refreshing to see someone so gifted make the occasional flub" and described Swift as "the most important new pop star of the past few years,"[124] music analyst Bob Lefsetz predicted that her career would end "overnight." He publicly appealed to Swift's father to hire a "crisis publicity agent" to manage the story because "Taylor's too young and dumb to understand the mistake she made."[128][129] Stevie Nicks, writing in Time, defended the singer: