Kanye West made an appearance on the premiere of Jay Leno’s new show last night. West was scheduled to perform with Jay-Z and Rihanna, but in light of the controversy over his obnoxious stage crash at Sunday’s VMAs he also came on to say sowwry. Kanye wore black but left the sunglasses off, as he’s been known to wear throughout interviews that don’t involve a big mea culpa. Kanye said he was sorry, that he is still hurting after his mom died and that he tried to transfer that hurt to someone else and that was wrong. He said he’s been working too hard and that he needs to take some time off to get his head on straight:

In an interview on Jay Leno’s first primetime show on NBC Monday night, Kanye West blames the pain from his mother’s 2007 death for causing him to ambush Taylor Swift at Sunday night’s MTV VMAs.

“You know, I deal with hurt,” said West — who grabbed the mic from Swift, 17, as she accepted her Best Female Video award. “And you know, so many celebrities, they never take time off. I’ve never taken the time off to really — you know, just music after music and tour after tour.

“I’m just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else’s hurt — and I don’t try to justify it because I was just in the wrong. That’s period,” he went on. “But I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I’m going to make it through the rest of this life, how I’m going to improve. Because I am a celebrity, and that’s something I have to deal with.

“And if there’s anything I could do to help Taylor in the future or help anyone, I’d like — you know, I want to live this thing. It’s hard sometimes,” he said.

When Leno asked West if his mom, Donda, who died from plastic surgery complications, would have been disappointed in his behavior, he admitted, “Yeah.”

West — who appeared on the show to perform “Run This Town” with Jay-Z and Rihanna — said it’s been an “extremely difficult” day.

“Just dealing with the fact that I hurt someone or took anything away, you know, from a talented artist or from anyone, because I only wanted to help people,” he said. “My entire life, I’ve only wanted to give and do something that I felt was right. And I immediately knew in the situation that it was wrong, and it wasn’t a spectacle or just — you know, it’s actually someone’s emotions, you know, that I stepped on. And it was very — it was just — it was rude, period.

“And, you know, I’d like to be able to apologize to her in person. And I wanted to….” he said.

When Leno asked when he knew he was doing something wrong, West said, “As soon as I gave the mic back to her and she didn’t keep going.”

[From US Weekly]

I really wanted to bash the guy, but after watching the segment I have to say that I got the impression that Kanye was genuinely choked up about what he did and you could see that he’s really struggling. He did seem sorry and embarrassed and I think he’s going to try to change. Compare Kanye’s obvious shame and hurt with Chris Brown’s multiple arrogant dismissive half-apologies after he beat the crap out of Rihanna. Kanye didn’t look like he was acting to me at all and seemed really upset and sorry. Obviously these are two very different incidents, but Kanye feels like a loser – deservedly so – and he clearly feels bad about what he did. Kanye is a jackass, but he knows it and he understands that he hurt someone. Maybe all that crap about being the best is just a lot of hype for him to hide behind, and maybe this is the wakeup call he needs to shed that ridiculous bravado. He didn’t beat anybody up, he just let his ego do the talking and embarrassed a young woman and himself. He might just learn how to control himself from now on. We’ll see.