Kanye West defends his Britney Spears Twitter 'joke'

After interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the 2009 VMA Awards to big up Beyonce, you'd have thought Kanye West would have learnt to keep it zipped.

But now he's 'insulted' pop princess Britney Spears' new single Hold It Against Me on Twitter - and had to apologise again. Sort of.

'Britney, I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you be [number] 1, but me and Jay-Z's single is one of the best songs of all time!' Kanye, 33, posted.

Realising his words had caused upset in the Britney camp after complaints from her fans, Kanye tried to justify his Tweet.

'When I said the comment about Brittney I was giving her props for being #1 not dissing her at all!' he wrote.

'How can u "let" someone be number one??!! That was the whole joke!!!'

'I know intelligent people know this so bear with me.'

'I'm one of the most considerate people in real life.'

'Maybe over considerate. Over caring. Overly real'

'This shit takes the air out my lungs sometimes from blogs to news reports... enough already!!! '

'All I do is focus on my work.'

'But stop making it seem that my aim is to hurt or down people! That's just not my style!'

'I won't always say the right thing but my heart is always in the right place.'