Taylor Swift and Ye formerly known as Kanye West have had a long and complicated history.
The two first became embroiled in controversy in 2009, when YE interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech for Video of the Year at the MTV VMAs. The feud continued over the years, with YE releasing a song called “Famous” in 2016 that made jabs at Swift. In 2023, Swift claimed that Kim Kardashian edited the infamous phone call with YE, which took her down psychologically and that she didn’t trust anyone as a result. In the same year, Swift lambasted the music industry and said that the feud with YE took her down psychologically.
Now before I share excerpts from Taylor TIME’s interview lets go over the facts and context for the people in the back with selective memories.
2009 MTV Video Music Awards
Its 2009 and I remember it like it was yesterday, Lil Wayne had flood the mixtape game with his Drought series , Drake just entered the group chat while Rihanna and Beyonce were ruling the airwaves respectively. I was watching the VMA’s hoping Beyonce would win the VMA for Best Female Video award and expecting to be robbed as usual. When Taylor Swift was announced as the winner of the award for ‘You Belong with Me’, and as she gave her acceptance speech, Ye interrupted her.
He also snatched the mic from her and told her, “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish. But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!”
Amber Rose, Ye’s then girlfriend from 2008 to 2010 recently sat down with ET to promote her last venture MUVA and was asked about the historic incident. Over a decade after the incident, Rose said, “I don’t want to say the wrong thing because I love Taylor Swift, she’s amazing.”
She continued to say, “Was he wrong for going on stage? Absolutely. Was he telling the truth? He was telling the truth — Beyoncé deserved that award but you can’t take it from somebody else,” she continued, before asserting, “It wasn’t Taylor Swift’s fault.”
The TV personality further shared that the VMA staff members “came and took him away and had a conversation with him and I was just sitting there like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe it.’”
Rose noted, “I was there but it wasn’t — it didn’t happen to me. And I can honestly say that he was very remorseful.
She defended the rapper, claiming, “He instantly felt bad because it wasn’t about Taylor at all, it wasn’t like I think the media made it seem — like he was picking on her and stuff. He wasn’t, he was just standing up for Beyoncé.”
YE ‘felt bad’ for ruining Taylor Swift’s moment
The mother-of-one also gave the reason behind YE’s action as she claimed, “It was ‘Single Ladies.’ I mean, everyone around the world [was] doing that dance from the video and it was just an unfortunate situation.”
However, she asserted that YE was not proud of what he did with Swift. Rose added, “[Kanye] obviously felt bad he took her moment. He didn’t want to do that to her.”
Watch Full Video Clip Here
Since that “Infamous” ordeal Swift and Ye have linked up and vibed out at various points over the years.
Grammys 2016
“Famous”
Fast forward to 2016. “Famous” was produced and co-written by fellow hip hop artist/producer Havoc. It served as the lead single from his seventh studio album The Life of Pablo (2016). The song features vocals from Rihanna and ad-libs from Swizz Beatz, and enlists samples of Jamaican singer Sister Nancy‘s song “Bam Bam” and “Do What You Gotta Do” by Nina Simone.
Upon its release, “Famous” was met with both critical acclaim and scrutiny for a controversial lyrical reference to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Ye claimed to have obtained Swift’s approval over the criticized lyric, Swift denied the claim, criticizing Ye and denouncing the lyric as “misogynistic” in a statement. Several months later,
In the summer of 2016, Kim Kardashian — who was married to Ye at the time — appeared in a GQ cover spread. In the interview, she told a reporter that Swift “totally approved” of the controversial lyric in Ye’s “Famous.”
“She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn’t. I swear, my husband gets so much shit for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved,” she said.
In response, a spokesperson for Swift issued a lengthy statement to GQ:
“Taylor does not hold anything against Kim Kardashian as she recognizes the pressure Kim must be under and that she is only repeating what she has been told by Kanye West. However, that does not change the fact that much of what Kim is saying is incorrect. Kanye West and Taylor only spoke once on the phone while she was on vacation with her family in January of 2016 and they have never spoken since. Taylor has never denied that conversation took place. It was on that phone call that Kanye West also asked her to release the song on her Twitter account, which she declined to do. Kanye West never told Taylor he was going to use the term ‘that bitch’ in referencing her. A song cannot be approved if it was never heard. Kanye West never played the song for Taylor Swift. Taylor heard it for the first time when everyone else did and was humiliated. Kim Kardashian’s claim that Taylor and her team were aware of being recorded is not true, and Taylor cannot understand why Kanye West, and now Kim Kardashian, will not just leave her alone.”
In June 2016, YE released a music video for “Famous” depicting wax figures of YE, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Anna Wintour, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlyn Jenner and Bill Cosby all sleeping naked in a shared bed. It was released to a polarized response. The wax figures used in the video were later exhibited as a sculpture. The song was later nominated for Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best Rap Song at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.
Watch the Full Music Video Below.
In July 2016 Kardashian released a three-minute video capturing parts of a conversation between Swift and YE in which Swift appears to approve a portion of the lyric, that she said was taken prior to the release of “The Life of Pablo.”
“As a friend, I want things that make you feel good,” YE says in the video.
“If people ask me about it, look, I think it would be great for me to be like, ‘He called me and told me before it came out … Joke’s on you, guys. We’re fine,’” Swift also says.
The video quickly went viral on social media, with many siding with Kardashian and tweeting the hashtag “#KimExposedTaylorParty.”
In response, Swift had said in a now-deleted Instagram post: “I wanted to believe Kanye when he told me that I would love the song. I wanted us to have a friendly relationship. He promised to play the song for me, but he never did. While I wanted to be supportive of Kanye on the phone call, you cannot ‘approve’ a song you haven’t heard. Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination. I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be part of, since 2009.”
In 2020, a 25-minute uncut version of the video surfaced, establishing that YE did not appear to tell Swift about the specific line (“I made that bitch famous”) which she had objected to.
Kim responded…
Spin the Block
As TIME Magazines Person of the Year for 2023, Swift will be gracing three unique covers of the magazine.
In her Time’s Magazine article Swift talks with Time writer Sam Lansky from her New York City apartment about when she disappeared to an international rental in 2016 and hid for a year, her rerecorded albums taking off, her fitness training for her behemoth concert, her economic impact, her blockbuster movie and her relationship with Travis Kelce.
“I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots,” she said about her headspace at the 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,” she added. “That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve 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.”
Swift, named by the magazine’s editors as the person who most influenced the world in 2023, reflected on the feud during a conversation with the cover story’s writer.
Taylor Swift has been keeping busy with her Eras Tour celebrating her catalog, making frequent cameos at NFL games in support of her new boyfriend Kansas City QB Travis Kelce and embracing the synergy with Beyonce who just wrapped her own Rennaissance World Tour. Both Beyonce and Taylor Swift have been making headlines this year for their economy boosting tours and respective concert films that subverted traditional film studios to land directly with Theatres.
And in an Instagram post commemorating the title, the 33-year-old pop star hinted at the reason she’s more selective these days about which publications she speaks to, while also explaining why she made an exception for TIME. “I have tRuSt iSSueS when it comes to interviews,” she wrote Wednesday (Dec. 6) to caption a photo of one of her three covers.
“But I couldn’t be happier that I did this one with [Sam Lansky],” she continued, giving a special shoutout to the writer of her Person of the Year profile. “If you’ve ever been around him, you know he’s just the best type of person: Curious. Interested. Hilarious. Intriguing and intrigued.”
The “Anti-Hero” singer also said she was “blown away” to see that the magazine had spoken to Stevie Nicks, Greta Gerwig, Shonda Rhimes, Phoebe Bridgers and more stars, each of whom sang her praises in the piece. “I’m really reflecting on this year, and all the years that led up to it,” she added. “Can’t say thank you enough times.”
The pop superstar also shared how excited she was to receive the magazine’s honor. “The biggest, loudest, most aggressively over-excited thank you to @time for naming me Person of the Year,” she wrote in another Instagram post.
While 2023 is coming to a close, Ye has also been busy keeping it international with new wife Bianca Censori, hanging out with fellow artist Chris Brown and Vory, formed a new duo with Ty Dolla $ign .
The new duo stylized Y$ dropped a new single “Vultures” featured Bump J and Lil Durk with Ye, providing standout lyrics, “How I’m Anti-Semitic, I just fucked a Jewish Bitch” in reference to his controversial 2022 tweets about Jewish executives in the entertainment industry.
Stream “Vultures” by Ye ft Ty Dolla $ign, Bump J and Lil Durk
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