While reflecting on the time when she famously crashed the stage at the 2009 MTV VMAs as JAY-Z and Alicia Keys were performing their infectious hit “Empire State of Mind,” Lil Mama breaks down in tears in the middle of a new interview.
The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards was jam-packed with celebrity sightings, live performances, and tons of unexpected entertainment. Aside from Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift‘s acceptance speech for Best Video over Beyoncé and others, Lil Mama hopped up on stage unexpectedly too. Feeling the spirit, the Brooklyn, New York rapper, singer, and actress hopped up on the stage, despite Hov’s wife Beyoncé trying to hold her back.
Although the iconic moment wasn’t planned, it turned out to be the talk of the town, and for years Lil Mama has faced mixed reactions — with the majority criticizing her actions and making fun of her embarrassing moment through years and years of memes.
While recently joining ‘The Jay Hill Podcast,’ Lil Mama recalls the moment and explains how she felt. She says, “Yeah, in the beginning, I was hurt. Tyrese called my phone as soon as I got home. He was like, ‘Bro, you didn’t tell me you was performing!’ First of all, my heart is racing. I’m already mad embarrassed.”
Re-enacting the moment, Lil Mama begins to fake laugh and recalls telling Tyrese, “You crazy, Ty! Haha. Why would you say something like that? Performing? Aha! That’s crazy!” Lil Mama continues to recall, “I had to deal with Ed Lover on the radio in the morning, Wendy Williams, Angie Martinez, who talked to JAY, and he was just like, ‘Yeah, you know. I didn’t like it.’ He was so angry and I was just trying my best to do everything I could do. After a while, I was like, ‘Forgive yourself, bro. Move forward.’
The host then asks, “That didn’t make you, like, depressed or nothing?’ Lil Mama continues, “Bro, I was hurt. I was depressed. I was like, ‘Yo, what’s going on?’ And then you got everybody telling you, ‘You’re doing bad.’ People pointing at you, like, ‘What did you do?’” The host questions how the rapper and actor was able to get through the tough times. Lil Mama waves off the interviewer and begins to tear up. She gathers herself and says, “I be thinking about real-life stuff that people go through, bro. And I be like, ‘I’m so blessed.’”
She then begins to tell a story, explaining, “I met a girl. She had a fight in Brooklyn [at] a train station. She’s trying to get shorty off of her. This girl’s coming up to her, she’s leaving the train station now. She’s going through the turnstile. Shorty’s coming up to her, being aggressive. I don’t know where she got what from.. a knife or something. She pushed shorty, or whatever she did to protect herself, and killed the girl. When I went to go visit her at Rikers Island, she was holding my hand, like, ‘Get me out of here! I don’t belong here! I was protecting myself!’”
Lil Mama reiterates, “There’s people going through worse sh*t than me, bro. And that’s what helped me be like, ‘Yo, I’m good.’
Since the iconic moment, Lil Mama has profusely apologized for catching the spirit and crashing JAY-Z and Alicia Key’s 2009 VMAs performance. 14 years later, she and Alicia Keys were spotted hugging it out 14 years later. In March 2023, the two shared a warm embrace at an event in New York City.
Two years before that, Keys opened up about the incident. While speaking with The Morning Hustle in October 2021, she said she wasn’t even aware of Lil Mama being on stage. She further explained that she understood where the Brooklyn rapper was coming from, adding that her music tends to have that effect on listeners. Then in December 2021, JAY-Z forgave the rapper as well.
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And they thought so much of themselves to stand and watch her career be destroyed. To me she was an overly excited fan who had the platform to do her thing and made a simple mistake joining their stage. Them being big stars should have made an announcement to encourage fans to let it go. I believe her career would have been unaffected if so.