Since 2009, Taylor Swift and Kanye West have been locked in one of many tensest battles in celeb historical past. They principally stayed out of one another’s methods after their first, notorious, televised second collectively till a public reconciliation in 2015 made it look like all of that was simply water beneath the bridge. However who knew the worst was but to come back?
Issues between Swift and West wouldn’t solely worsen immensely in 2016, after West launched his track “Well-known,” however their internet would quickly entangle Kim Kardashian, Scooter Braun, and even Justin Bieber.
After the discharge of Swift’s eleventh album The Tortured Poets Division, it’s clear the wound stays open as she seems to take a particularly thinly veiled shot at Kardashian’s involvement in what she as soon as known as a “profession loss of life.”
Have a look again at the whole lot that transpired since West interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech on the VMAs 15 years in the past.
Kanye West (L) jumps onstage after Taylor Swift (C) gained the “Greatest Feminine Video” award throughout the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor on September 13, 2009 in New York Metropolis.
Christopher Polk/Getty Photographs
September 13, 2009: Kanye Interrupts Taylor’s VMAs Speech
In 2009, Taylor Swift was a 19-year-old nation star whose album, Fearless, was additionally successful with mainstream pop followers. Her video for “You Belong With Me” beat out Beyoncé’s “Single Girls (Put a Ring on It)” for Greatest Feminine Video, and she or he went to the stage to just accept the award. To date, so good.
Then Kanye, as all of us bear in mind, jumped onstage, grabbed the mic, and stated, “Yo, Taylor, I’m actually joyful for you and I’mma allow you to end, however Beyoncé had top-of-the-line movies of all time. Top-of-the-line movies of all time!”
Kanye was booed, and celebrities rapidly rallied behind Swift, together with the President of america himself (“He’s a jackass,” Barack Obama shrugged) and Beyoncé herself, who invited Swift onstage along with her when accepting her Video of the Yr award later that evening.
West wrote an apologetic weblog put up, which he yanked, then wrote one other, then lastly categorical his remorse on The Jay Leno Present, saying he was ashamed. He later contacted Swift to apologize by telephone.
However by this level, “interrupting Kanye” and his “I’mma allow you to end” had been web memes and the incident had develop into one of the parodied awards present moments, as Kanye may say, of all time. Of all time.
November 7, 2009: Taylor Hosts SNL and References VMA Incident
Two months after the VMA second, Swift hosted Saturday Evening Reside and addressed the incident with West with a joking line in her “Monologue Tune.”
“You is perhaps anticipating me to say/One thing unhealthy about Kanye/And the way he ran up on the stage/And ruined my VMA monologue,” Swift stated on the Nov. 7, 2009 present. “However there’s nothing extra to say/’Trigger the whole lot’s OK/I’ve acquired safety lining the stage/It’s my SNL monologue.”
September 2010: Kanye Apologizes on Twitter, Taylor Debuts “Harmless”
A yr later, Kanye fired off a prolonged, apologetic tweet storm, saying he’d written her a track that he’d report himself if she didn’t need it, and he concluded with a easy “I’m sorry Taylor.” However Swift had a track of her personal that appeared to handle the controversy, “Harmless,” which she premiered at that yr’s VMAs.
“Harmless,” which walked a high quality line between forgiving and condescending, would additionally seem on Swift’s album, Converse Now. (Cynics may observe that this feud flares up when there’s an award present on the horizon, or one of many artists in query has a brand new album to advertise.)
November 5, 2010: Kanye Backtracks on Apology
The controversy appeared to have died down after that, however in an interview with Entry Hollywood in October 2010, West listed Swift’s Fearless amongst latest albums that ought to not have gained the Grammy for Album of the Yr. And as interviewers saved mentioning the VMA incident, West struggled to elucidate and generally defend it.
On Minnesota radio station KDWB in November, he claimed his actions weren’t “boastful” however “selfless.” He additionally claimed that the occasion benefitted Swift, saying that he helped her “have 100 journal covers and promote one million [her] first week.”
Recording artist Kanye West (L) accepts the Video Vanguard Award from recording artist Taylor Swift onstage throughout the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on August 30, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.
Kevin Winter/MTV1415/Getty Photographs/MTV
August 2015: Taylor Presents Kanye With Video Vanguard Award at VMAs
In Could 2011, Kanye West and Taylor Swift met on the purple carpet on the Costume Institute Gala — with out incident. The 2 exchanged a down-low hand slap. The hatchet appeared completely buried when Swift was tapped to current the Michael Jackson Video Award to West on the 2015 VMAs.
Her speech concluded, “All the opposite winners, I’m actually joyful for you, I’m going to allow you to end, however Kanye West has had one of many biggest careers of all time.” West’s acceptance was heartfelt however rambling, suggesting his points with awards exhibits had been removed from settled.
February 11, 2016: Kanye Mentions Taylor in New Tune “Well-known”
To premiere his newest album, The Lifetime of Pablo, West took over Madison Sq. Backyard and livesteamed a lavish occasion dubbed Yeezy Season 3. The spectacle acquired a variety of responses, however everybody shook their head at one set of lyrics in his new track “Well-known:” “I really feel like me and Taylor may nonetheless have intercourse/Why? I made that bitch well-known/Goddamn, I made that bitch well-known.”
Kanye later stated he’d gotten Taylor’s permission to drop that line, however a press release from Swift’s PR folks disputed that: “Kanye didn’t name for approval, however to ask Taylor to launch his single ‘Well-known’ on her Twitter account. She declined and cautioned him about releasing a track with such a powerful misogynistic message. Taylor was by no means made conscious of the particular lyric, ‘I made that bitch well-known.’”
Kanye took to Twitter, as he does, the place he caught to his story that Swift authorized of the traces.
February 15, 2016: Taylor Shades Kanye Throughout Grammys Speech
The ball was in Swift’s courtroom, then, when 1989 gained the Grammy for Album of the Yr. Her response was impassioned and as clearly directed at West because it might be with out mentioning his identify.
“As the primary lady to win Album of the Yr on the Grammys twice, I need to say to all of the younger ladies on the market: there are going to be folks alongside the way in which who will attempt to undercut your success or take credit score on your accomplishments or your fame,” Swift stated onstage.
However that was hardly the top of the battle.
February 17, 2016: Kanye Calls Taylor “Faux Ass” in Leaked Saturday Evening Reside Rant
And the meat rages on. Particulars in regards to the supply and the precise context are nonetheless sketchy, however two days after Swift’s Grammy win, Web page Six posted audio of an enraged West apparently venting backstage at SNL on Feb. 13.
The clip is actually an prolonged “Have you learnt who I’m?” tirade — through which the rapper likens himself to Stanley Kubrick, Pablo Picasso, and different icons — however West may be heard throwing in a fast Swift diss as properly, labeling the singer-songwriter “faux ass.”
June 2016: Kim Joins the Battle and West Drops “Well-known” Video with Nude Taylor Reproduction
The squabbling over “Well-known” had largely died down till an incendiary quote appeared in a GQ profile of Kim Kardashian.
In line with Kim, Kanye not solely known as Taylor for approval of the road, however their name was captured on video — and Swift, Kardashian stated, knew about this footage. (In response, a Swift consultant acknowledged, “Taylor can not perceive why Kanye West, and now Kim Kardashian, is not going to simply go away her alone.”)
It may need appeared like an offhand comment. However a celeb as publicity savvy as Kim Kardashian doesn’t make offhand remarks.
Then, on June 24, West debuted a nine-minute video for “Well-known” at an unique Tidal occasion on the Discussion board in Los Angeles that featured Kanye and Kim in mattress, surrounded by nude replicas of a lot of celebrities.
On the place of honor, to Ye’s proper, was a totally undressed Taylor Swift facsimile. West insisted the video had nothing to say in regards to the people represented, however was simply “a touch upon fame.” Then he tweeted: “Can any person sue me already #I’llwait.”
July 2016: Kim Snapchats Video of Taylor Approving Controversial “Well-known” Lyric; Taylor Calls Transfer “Character Assassination”
Up till this level, the feud over Kanye’s crass “Well-known” lyric — “For all my Southside n—as that know me greatest/I really feel like me and Taylor may nonetheless have intercourse” — has been a traditional case of he-said-she-said.
However on a July Sunday evening, Kim Kardashian launched a key, extremely damning piece of proof into the courtroom of public opinion. She vented her frustration on Protecting Up With the Kardashians; “I’ve had it with folks blatantly treating my husband a sure approach and making him look a sure approach; I’m gonna say how I really feel.” Then, she took to Snapchat to disclose the smoking-gun video she teased in GQ, which clearly exhibits Swift approving the supposedly controversial lyric.
“What’s dope in regards to the line is it’s very tongue-in-cheek both approach,” the pop star says after West reads her the road. “And I actually respect you telling me about it, that’s very nice.”
After the video reveal, Swift rapidly fired again, taking situation with being known as a “bitch” within the track and indicating that West by no means performed her the complete observe previous to launch as he promised: “Being falsely painted as a liar once I was by no means given the complete story or performed any a part of the track is character assassination,” she wrote on Instagram.
Nearly seven years after “I’mma allow you to end,” this epic beef has seemingly reached a brand new apex.
August 24, 2017: Taylor Releases “Look What You Made Me Do”
After an extended hiatus, Swift releases “Look What You Made Me Do,” the feisty lead single off her forthcoming new album Status.
With vengeful lyrics like “I don’t like your little video games/ I don’t like your tilted stage,/ I don’t such as you,” plus an impact that sounds as if she’s singing via a telephone, the observe appears to allude to her lengthy, public feud with West.
November 2017: Taylor Releases Status With Extra Photographs at Kimye
Though she’s by no means confirmed that her lyrics are about her Kimye feud, followers have lengthy speculated that a number of of the tracks on her LP Status are aimed toward West and Kardashian.
On “I Did One thing Dangerous,” she sang each lyrics “I by no means belief a narcissist, however they love me,” and later, “If a person talks shit, then I owe him nothin’, I don’t remorse it one bit ’trigger he had it coming.”
Then on “That is Why We Can’t Have Good Issues,” Swift alluded to her friendship-rekindling with West and the way she felt tricked and bamboozled by the rap star after she misled her following the 2015 VMAs. She described the rapper as “shady” and referenced how West has misplaced a number of different associates due to his antics.
“It was so good being associates once more / There I used to be supplying you with a second probability / However you stabbed me within the again whereas shaking my hand,” Swift sings. “And therein lies the difficulty / Associates don’t attempt to trick you / Get you on the telephone and mind-twist you / And so I took an axe to a mended fence.”
And naturally, the fan-favorite line: “And right here’s to you / ‘Trigger forgiveness is a pleasant factor to do / Hahaha, I can’t even say it with a straight face.”
Early 2019: Kim Declares Feud Is Over, However Taylor Claims There’s Been No Apology
The Kimye-Taylor beef seemingly took a pause in January 2019 when Kardashian visited Andy Cohen’s What What Occurs Reside and informed the host that she was “over” her household’s battle with Swift.
“I really feel like we’d all moved on,” Kardashian stated, earlier than stating she’d moderately be caught in an elevator with Swift over Drake in a “Would You Moderately” recreation.
However then in March, Swift appeared on the quilt of Elle and alluded to the truth that the couple had but to apologize for his or her therapy to her.
“I discovered that disarming somebody’s petty bullying may be so simple as studying to snicker,” Swift wrote in Elle. “In my expertise, I’ve come to see that bullies need to be feared and brought severely. A number of years in the past, somebody began a web based hate marketing campaign by calling me a snake on the web.”
“It will be good if we might get an apology from individuals who bully us, however possibly all I’ll ever get is the satisfaction of understanding I might survive it, and thrive despite it,” she added.
Summer season 2019: Taylor Calls “Well-known” Video “Revenge Porn”
Amid the Scooter Braun-Massive Machine Data debacle about him proudly owning her masters (Right here’s a breakdown of that beef), Swift straight addressed her emotions surrounding the “Well-known” music video, which noticed a faux Swift nude laying in the identical mattress as quite a few different celebs, together with Donald Trump.
In a Tumblr put up in June 2019, she described the incident as a “revenge porn music video which strips my physique bare.”
Swift’s put up included a screenshot from Justin Bieber’s Instagram of the pop star FaceTiming West and Braun, and captioned it “Hi there Taylor Swift.” In her Tumblr put up, Swift described how the supervisor and her shopper was “bullying me on social media once I was at my lowest level.”
Taylor Swift attends the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Middle on August 26, 2019 in Newark, New Jersey.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Photographs/MTV
September 2019: Taylor Particulars Her Facet of Notorious Cellphone Name with Kanye
Throughout a Rolling Stone cowl story in September 2019, the singer spoke at nice size in regards to the 2016 telephone name between herself and West relating to “Well-known” and the way “the world didn’t perceive… the occasions that led as much as it.”
“Nothing ever simply occurs like that with out some lead-up,” she began to elucidate. “Some occasions befell to trigger me to be pissed off when he known as me a bitch. That was not only a singular occasion. Mainly, I acquired actually sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn’t simply primarily based on what occurred on that telephone name and with that track — it was form of a series response of issues.”
Swift defined that she thought she and West had began to reconnect after he requested her to current him with the 2015 VMA Vanguard Award. However then, onstage, he claimed that it was all finished for rankings.
“I’m standing within the viewers with my arm round his spouse, and this chill ran via my physique. I noticed he’s so two-faced,” Swift stated. “That he desires to be good to me behind the scenes, however then he desires to look cool, stand up in entrance of everybody and discuss shit. And I used to be so upset. He wished me to come back discuss to him after the occasion in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go. So then he despatched this massive, massive factor of flowers the following day to apologize.”
Then, the telephone name in regards to the “Well-known” lyric occurred, and she or he claims she was misled by the rapper from the get-go.
“After I heard the track, I used to be like, ‘I’m finished with this. If you wish to be on unhealthy phrases, let’s be on unhealthy phrases, however simply be actual about it,’” she defined, later explaining his techniques: “Getting near you, incomes your belief, detonating you. I actually don’t need to speak about it anymore as a result of I get labored up, and I don’t need to simply speak about adverse shit all day, however it’s the identical factor.”
January 31, 2020: Taylor Particulars Reminiscence of Crowd “Booing” After Kanye Interrupted Her
Swift seemed again on the notorious VMA second with West in her Miss Americana documentary.
“It was so echeoy in there. On the time, I didn’t know they had been booing him doing him doing that,” she stated within the documentary. “On the time, I believed they had been booing me.”
“For somebody who has constructed their complete perception system on getting folks to clap for you, the entire crowd booing is a reasonably formative expertise,” she added.
March 2020: The “Well-known” Cellphone Name Leaks in Full, Taylor and Kim Each Reply
It took 4 years for the complete telephone name between West and Swift to leak on-line. In movies posted to Twitter, Swift and West might be heard conversing in regards to the “Well-known” lyrics, even revealing that West wished Swift “to tweet it.”
“So it says, ‘To all my Southside n—as that know me greatest/ I really feel like Taylor Swift may owe me intercourse,” West informed the singer. “That’s not imply,” responded Swift within the clip leaked on March 20, 2020.
Within the clip, Swift additionally shared her reduction after studying that she was not “that silly dumb bitch” that West raps about within the track. Although she informed him, she’d have to “give it some thought as a result of it’s completely loopy.”
“I’m going to ship you the track and ship you the precise wording and the whole lot about it, proper? After which we might sit and discuss via it,” West tells her.
Three days later, Swift addressed the leak stating she was “telling the reality the entire” and that that proved it.
“As a substitute of answering those that are asking how I really feel in regards to the video footage that leaked, proving that I used to be telling the reality the entire time about *that decision* (, the one which was illegally recorded, that any person edited and manipulated with a view to body me and put me, my household and followers via hell for 4 years)…SWIPE UP to see what actually issues,” wrote Swift, a hyperlink to the World Well being Group days after it declared the Covid-19 pandemic.
The next day, Kardashian defended herself and her husband saying the difficulty Swift initially had was that he had “by no means known as to ask for permission.”
“To be clear, the one situation I ever had across the state of affairs was that Taylor lied via her publicist who acknowledged that ‘Kanye by no means known as to ask for permission,’” she wrote on X. “They clearly spoke so I allow you to all see that. No person ever denied the phrase ‘bitch’ was used with out her permission.”
December 2023: Taylor refers to feud as “profession loss of life,” calls out Kim
Swift was named Particular person of the Yr by Time in 2023 after the large success of her Eras Tour. She gave her first sit down journal interview in a number of years due to this honor, and in it, she recalled the rekindled feud as a “profession loss of life.”
“Make no mistake — my profession was taken away from me,” she stated within the interview, referring to the backlash she acquired after Kardashian leaked the telephone name.
“You have got a totally manufactured body job, in an illegally recorded telephone name, which Kim Kardashian edited after which put out to say to everybody that I used to be a liar,” she continued. “That took me down psychologically to a spot I’ve by no means been earlier than. I moved to a international nation. I didn’t go away a rental home for a yr. I used to be afraid to get on telephone calls. I pushed away most individuals in my life as a result of I didn’t belief anybody anymore. I went down actually, actually arduous.”
February 15, 2024: Kanye says he’s been useful to Taylor’s profession
After the Tremendous Bowl, rumors circulated that Swift had West kicked out from the occasion. West later denied the rumors but additionally tried to atone with Swift and her followers. (As is now identified, Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce was not solely taking part in however gained the massive recreation.)
“To all Taylor Swift followers I’m not your enemy. Uuum I’m not your buddy both although LOL,” he wrote in a since-deleted put up.
“I’m positive I’ve been way more useful to Taylor Swift’s profession than dangerous,” West wrote, after calling her and Beyoncé “enormous inspirations” to different musicians. “Bear in mind I used to be on Taylor’s aspect when Scooter purchased her masters behind her again.”
Elsewhere within the put up, West provided a proof for why Swift is name-checked in his latest track “Carnival.”
“After I stated that I’m the brand new Jesus bitch I wasn’t even fascinated about Taylor Swift,” West wrote. “That was an entire line earlier than however I respect the free promo. Lil Wayne truly mentions Travis [Kelce] on Vultures 2. This album is definitely tremendous optimistic and enjoyable it’s all about triumphant.”
April 19, 2024: Taylor releases “thanK you aIMee”
Eight years after the Kardashian leaked the telephone name between West and Swift on her Snapchat, Swift had some extra selection phrases for the truth star.
In a surprise-released batch of 15 songs that had been a part of her eleventh album The Tortured Poets Division, Swift included a track known as “thanK you aIMee,” which has the letters KIM capitalized.
In it, she refers to “Aimee” as a bully. After spending the track screaming “fuck you Aimee” on the sky, Swift thanks the Kim stand-in for serving to her heal and construct one thing greater than what “Aimee” destroyed.
Swift frames the track as if she’s fascinated about an old style bully, however traces like “There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you,” and even ”And so I modified your identify, and any actual defining clues” aren’t fooling anybody.