Theo Wargo / Getty Images
When the VMA nominations were announced a couple days ago, Nicki Minaj took to Twitter to criticize what she saw as unfair treatment of her videos for "Anaconda" and "Feeling Myself." Taylor Swift felt that some of Nicki's Tweets were aimed at her, so the 1989 star started tweeting as well. But in her hurry to prove that it wasn't her fault, Swift seemed to miss Nicki's main point—that the VMA's snub black artists. Meanwhile, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran started a fake twitter battle, which you could view as a pleasant injection of levity or a way of trivializing a serious and ongoing problem.
Now Ed Sheeran is talking in earnest. He told The Daily Telegraph, "I think everyone knows that Taylor has done nothing wrong in that situation. She didn't nominate herself for the awards. It's not her fault, she just made some good videos and people think they're good. And I think the Minaj point is a bit redundant, her point is that you have to be skinny and white to get a video of the year nomination but Beyoncé's '7/11' is in there and that is celebrating the female figure in every form."
Read up on the VMA's historical bias against black artists.
