Kanye West apologies: A brief history

Kanye West has apologized to former President George W. Bush for his post-Hurricane Katrina remark that Bush "doesn't care about black people."

Leaving aside how he feels about the "Today" show interview that produced the apology (short answer: displeased), we thought we'd look at West's two most famous televised mea culpas and compare and contrast them.

Up above, a snippet of his apology to Bush on "Today." West's full, pre-taped interview airs Thursday (Nov. 11), but the former president was a guest on Wednesday's show, and Matt Lauer showed him a bit of what West had to say: "In my moment of frustration, I didn't have the grounds to call him a racist," West says. "But I believe that in a situation of high emotion like that, we as human beings don't always choose the right words." (Bush says he accepts the apology.)

Based on that brief clip, West is pretty measured -- he is talking about something that happened five years ago, after all. It's more of an "I shouldn't have done that" sort of apology than an "I feel really bad about it" one.

For that kind of sorry, we have to turn to West's appearance on "The Jay Leno Show's" premiere in September 2009. It came just one day after the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards and West's infamous "I'ma let you finish" interruption of Taylor Swift and therefore was much more emotional.

See Kanye nearly cry as Leno asks him what his late mother would have thought of the incident. We don't know if afterward he complained that Leno "TRIED TO FORCE MY ANSWERS" (as he says of Lauer); West didn't join Twitter until July of this year.



Which apology feels more heartfelt to you?

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