It's 2019 and the frenemies relationship between Taylor Swift and Kanye West rages on. For anyone that may have been living in isolation on a deserted island without access to the media for the last decade, things took a sour turn between these two back in 2009 when Swift was bestowed the honor of Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. During her speech, Ye walked on stage, interrupted her, and announced that the award should have gone to Beyoncé. A meltdown ensued and Ye still can't live the moment down.
Let's jump to 2016, a time when the two artists had made up and were back to being friends again. It was all sunshine and strawberries until Kanye dropped his song "Famous" where he said of Swift, "For all my Southside n*ggas that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous." Almost a week later, Swift was on the Grammys stage accepting the award for Album of the Year and she used the opportunity to condemn those who "undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame."
Kim Kardashian went on to call her a "snake" in subliminal tweets, and on Snapchat shared clips of Kanye on the phone with Swift as the pop singer approved of her inclusion on the track. However, Swift would later say she never agreed to those specific lyrics, especially being referred to as "that bitch." She still holds to that truth in her September 2019 Vogue cover feature where she speaks on "cancel culture" coming after her following Kim "exposing" her on social media three years ago.
“A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience,” Swift said. “I don’t think there are that many people who can actually understand what it’s like to have millions of people hate you very loudly.” She added, "When you say someone is canceled, it’s not a TV show. It’s a human being. You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, Kill yourself.”
Swift decided to take that time to reevaluate what was important and put her energy into her music. “I realized I needed to restructure my life because it felt completely out of control,” Swift says. “I knew immediately I needed to make music about it because I knew it was the only way I could survive it. It was the only way I could preserve my mental health and also tell the story of what it’s like to go through something so humiliating.”
Just when you thought we'd heard the last of these three going at each other. Jeez.