Justin Timberlake on Kanye West's VMAs speech: 'He always has a point. And I support it' - Los Angeles Times
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Justin Timberlake on Kanye West’s VMAs speech: ‘He always has a point. And I support it’

Singer Justin Timberlake responds to Kanye West's MTV VMAs speech.

Singer Justin Timberlake responds to Kanye West’s MTV VMAs speech.

(Larry Busacca / Getty Images )
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Kanye West’s long-winded MTV Video Music Awards speech singled out singer Justin Timberlake and the purported real tears he cried after not winning a Grammy Award in 2007. But Timberlake took it in stride, posting his thoughts on Twitter with his typical good-natured humor.

“Kanye is so cute, y’all,” tweeted the “Mirrors” crooner, who was not in attendance.

That terse response riled up his followers, who thought that he was sarcastically calling out the rapper and recipient of the Video Vanguard Award, leading Timberlake to amend his commentary with, “Jokes, you guys... Jokes. #chill.”

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FULL COVERAGE: 2015 MTV Video Music Awards

The ‘N Sync veteran, who closed out the 2013 show with a 15-minute career retrospective when he received the Video Vanguard Award, ultimately came to West’s defense and, though he may have embarrassed him, he still had kind words for the cause.

“Btw... I JUST watched my man ‘Ye’s FULL speech... He always has a point. And I support it. #truth,” Timberlake added.

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Perhaps in an effort to redeem himself from awards show infamy, West took the stage to make several points (whether or not he actually did is still up for debate), one of which is that despite his bombastic behavior, he still stands up for artists. (See: His Beyonce-fueled interruption of Taylor Swift in 2009).

“The contradiction is I do fight for artists, but in that fight I somehow was disrespectful to artists,” West said. “I didn’t know how to say the right thing, the perfect thing. I just … I sat at the Grammys and saw Justin Timberlake and Cee-Lo lose. Gnarls Barkley and the FutureLove … SexyBack album … and Justin, I ain’t trying to put you on blast, but I saw that man in tears, bro. You know, and I was thinking, like, ‘He deserved to win Album of the Year!’”

The 38-year-old rapper also announced a 2020 presidential run, his award show befuddlement and millennial activism during the bro-laced speech.

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Follow me on Twitter @NardineSaad.

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