Cover art for MTV VMAs Acceptance Speech “This world is bullshit.” by Fiona Apple

MTV VMAs Acceptance Speech “This world is bullshit.”

MTV VMAs Acceptance Speech “This world is bullshit.” Lyrics

Oh man...

I didn't prepare a speech and I'm sorry but I'm glad I didn't because I'm not gonna do this like everybody else does it. 'Cause everybody that I should be thanking - I'm really sorry - but I have to use this time. See, Maya Angelou said that we, as human beings, at our best, can only create opportunities. And I'm gonna use this opportunity the way that I want to use it.

So, what I want to say is - um, everybody out there that's watching, everybody that's watching this world? This world is bullshit. And you shouldn’t model your life — wait a secondyou shouldn’t model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we’re wearing and what we’re saying and everything. Go with yourself. Go with yourself.

And there's just a few people that I want to say something to. I want to say, Mama, I love you I'm so glad that we're becoming friends. Amber, you're my sister, you're my best friend. Andrew Slater - no one else could have produced this album, and no one else did. Um...

And it's just stupid that I'm in this world, but you're all very cool to me so thank you very much. And I'm sorry for all the people that I didn't thank, but man...it's good. Bye.

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About

Genius Annotation

Upon the release of her debut album Tidal Fiona Apple won acclaim for her exceptional songwriting talent, especially at the young age of 19. She also, however, stirred up controversy for the music video for her album’s 3rd single, “Criminal” which the New Yorker described as similar to that of an “underfed Calvin Klein model” promoting “heroin chic” with “overtones of child porn.”

Host Chris Rock soon referred to her as “Fiona X” (presumably comparing her agenda-driven speech to Malcom X) and suggested she’s not eating enough. The next morning, Fiona told Howard Stern:

Yeah, Chris Rock needs to check himself because he was suffering up there and he grabbed for some kind of little anorexic joke, which I really don’t appreciate. (Apple then referred to Rock as) Little mister burnt match himself.

As Rolling Stone notes Apple was “fearful she was verging on becoming a sell-out and popular for the wrong reasons” and in response she lashed out with this short but powerful speech criticizing the music industry and the celebrity machine.

And NY Rock called it:

One of the most ridiculous soliloquies ever to be witnessed at an MTV Awards event.

After the event, Fiona posted a letter on her website:

When I won, I felt like a sellout. I felt that I deserved recognition but that the recognition I was getting was for the wrong reasons. I felt that now, in the blink of an eye, all of those people who didn’t give a fuck who I was, or what I thought, were now all at once just humoring, appeasing me, and not because of my talent, but instead because of the fact that somehow, with the help of my record company, and my makeup artist, my stylist and my press, I had successfully created the illusion that I was perfect and pretty and rich, and therefore living a higher quality of life… I’d saved myself from misfit status, but I’d betrayed my own kind by becoming a paper doll in order to be accepted.

Her speech caused a stir at the time. It’s listed on Cracked.com among the Top 5 Most Absurd Moments in VMA History, and on Woman’s Day magazine’s top 10 Worst Award Acceptance Speeches. Janeane Garafalo recorded a scathing parody of it for Denis Leary’s Lock and Load album.

15 years later, in 2012, Fiona commented:

The MTV thing… I was not comfortable in that situation, but that was my top moment of self-parenting. No matter if I didn’t say it completely right, I said what I wanted to say. That was going from junior high to another junior high. I felt like, “If I can say what’s on my mind now, then that’ll be the kind of person that I am.”

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Release Date
January 1, 1997
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