Taylor Swift has called out Kim and Kanye in a new interview. (Mark Metcalfe/Getty)
Taylor Swift has addressed her infamous feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West and the psychological effects it had on her.
The pop star, who is coming to the end of what has arguably been the biggest year of her career, has been chosen by Time as their Person of the Year – an honour that comes with a lengthy interview about the highs and lows of her career, much to the delight of Swifties.
In the interview, Swift touched on just about everything, from her new relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce to losing her masters to music manager Scooter Braun, to becoming besties with Beyoncé.
She also opens up about the drama that was 2016.
If you don’t recall, that was the year that Kanye dropped his single “Famous” which included the lyric: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that b***h famous.”
A very public dispute between West and Swift ensued – he insisting that he got her permission to use the line, and she outright denying that.
Eventually, this led to Kanye’s now ex-wife Kim Kardashian leaking video footage of Kanye’s phone call with Taylor, in which it appeared as though the “Cruel Summer” singer had approved the lyrics. Later, a longer version of this video would be released that proved Swift never approved of the word “b***h”.
Thus began the collective turning against Taylor Swift. People mercilessly mocked the singer and flooded her social media comments with snake emojis – an image that Swift would later reclaim as her own when she released Reputation.
Now that Swift has secured her spot as one of the most beloved pop icons in the world, she now looks back at that year as one of the most difficult in her life.
“Make no mistake – my career was taken away from me,” she told Time.
“You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar. That took me down psychologically to a place I’d never been before. I moved to a foreign country.
“I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
Kardashian argued in 2020 that “nobody ever denied the word ‘b***h’ was used without her permission.” However, in a 2016 interview with GQ, the influencer alleges that Swift “totally approved” West’s use of the lyric.
Thankfully, out of that drama emerged Swift’s 2017 album Reputation – the next album that Swifties expect a re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” of.
Reflecting fondly on that album, Swift said: “It’s a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure. I think a lot of people see it and they’re just like, sick snakes and strobe lights.”
It’s just one of the many eras that Swift covers on her Eras Tour, which she took all over the world this year, and will continue touring in the new year.
Today, Swift is in a far better place, between selling out every major stadium in the world, reclaiming the rights to her music album by album, as though they’re “Horcruxes” for her to collect, and going public with her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Travis Kelce.
The singer gushes that this time in her life is “the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been”.