Music

A Timeline Of Kanye West And Taylor Swift’s Bitter And Never-Ending Feud

Here's your primer on 11 years of fighting.

by Joseph Earp  24 March 2020
kanye west taylor swift timeline photo

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Some 11 years ago, a rapper named Kanye West stormed the VMAs stage, snatched a microphone off Taylor Swift, and called Beyonce’s video the greatest “of all time.” And thus began the never-ending feud.

2009 feels like a lifetime away now. Those were the pre-Trump, pre-Coronavirus epidemic days — a time with scandals and horrors of its own, of course, but scandals and horrors that feel very different from ours. Now, the world a decade ago feels like another universe entirely.

But the celebrity rivalry that it produced has haunted us for over a decade. In fact, as recently as this week, the Swift/West stoush hit the news once again, when the reputation singer criticised the rapper after a full recording of a phone call made years ago was revealed to the public.

All of those details can get somewhat confusing. So let’s lay them out, from the start.

September 2009 — Kanye West Storms The VMA’s

As reported by Vox, Kanye West rocked up to the 2009 VMA’s with a bottle of Hennessy that he slowly consumed over the course of the night. A few hours into it, Swift won the only award for which she was nominated — Best Video by a Female Artist.

It wasn’t so surprising. Beyonce was nominated for a slew of awards, making the chances that she would pick up more prestigious gongs throughout the night inevitable.

But as soon as Swift took to the stage, West barged in to interrupt her.

“Imma let you finish,” West said, “but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!”

September 2009 — West Cries On The Jay Leno Show

The day after the VMAs, West appeared on The Jay Leno show to apologise to Swift. “[I’m] dealing with the fact that I hurt someone or took anything away, you know, from a talented artist — or from anyone — because I only wanted to help people,” West said.

“My entire life, I’ve only wanted to do and give something that I felt was right and I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong.”

Later in the show, when Leno pushed West as to what his departed mother would think of the incident, he choked up.

September 2010 — West Apologises, Again

A week before the 2010 VMAs, West took to Twitter to apologise again for his behaviour the year before. “I’m sorry Taylor,” he tweeted, before revealing that he had written a song for the performer.

“I wrote a song for Taylor Swift that’s so beautiful and I want her to have it,” West tweeted. “If she won’t take it then I’ll perform it for her. She had nothing to do with my issues with award shows. She had no idea what hit her. She’s justa lil girl with dreams like the rest of us. She deserves the apology more than anyone.”

It was over. Or so we thought.

September  2010 — Taylor Swift Releases ‘Innocent’

At the 2010 VMAs ceremony, Swift performed the song ‘Innocent’ from her album Speak Now. The performance was pointed — a clear reference to the spat of the year before.

In fact, in the liner notes for that record, the singer admits that each song on the album is an “open letter” addressed to someone in her life. Moreover, she calls ‘Innocent’, a song explicitly about forgiveness, an open letter to “someone I forgive for what he said in front of the whole world.”

The target was clearly West, and years later, Swift confirmed as much. “People expected me to write a song about [him],” she told the New York magazine. “It was important to write a song to him.”

August 2015 — Taylor Presents Kanye With The Vanguard Award

Over the next five years, Swift and West were seen in public on multiple occasions, solidifying the sense that they had gotten over the controversies of the past.

Then, in 2015, Swift was asked by the MTV Awards to present the Vanguard award to West.  Which she did, calling him “my friend.”

Of course, the ensuing speech would overshadow the brief introduction — that was the one where West announced that he was running for President in 2020.

February 2016 — ‘Famous’ Drops; Taylor Reacts

But all of that goodwill would evaporate very soon. See, a year after winning the Vanguard Award, West dropped ‘Famous’, a song that takes credit for Swift’s career.

“For all my south side n**gas that still know me best,” West wrote, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous.”

Immediately, Swift responded, telling the public through her PR that she had never consented to the line and that she disagreed with its misogynistic message.

February 2016 — Kanye Calls Taylor “Fake Ass”; She Calls Him Out At The Grammys

In leaked audio behind-the-scenes at Saturday Night Live, West briefly railed against Swift, calling her “fake ass”.

That same year, Swift made reference to the rapper in an acceptance speech at The Grammys.

“There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success, or take credit for your accomplishments, or your fame, but if you just focus on the work, and you don’t let people sidetrack you, someday, when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and you will know that it was you.”

July 2016 — ‘Famous’ Video Drops

Released a little later, the ‘Famous’ video leant into the ongoing controversy, with Kanye asleep in a bed with a doll of Swift.

Quickly, she responded, telling publications that she was “horrified” and “livid” with the imagery.

July 2016 — Kim Kardashian Gets Involved, Brings A Lot Of Snake Emojis

Shortly after the ‘Famous’ video dropped, West’s wife, Kim Kardashian decided to get involved. On her Snapchat, she released a video of West speaking to Swift over the phone. In the clip, which was illegally recorded (Taylor Swift was not aware that she was being taped, and law dictates that she must be), West appears to read the singer the line.

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She reacts enthusiastically to it. “I really appreciate you telling me,” she says. “That’s really nice.”

Kardashian dropped the video on ‘International Snake Day’ along with a series of snake emojis, creating a visual motif that quickly haunted Swift. Indeed, fans of the Kardashians took to Swift’s Instagram to flood her pages with more snake emojis. It was, in essence, a total mess.

Swift, for her part, responded by saying that she wanted to be “excluded from this narrative”, one that she claimed to be involved in against her will for years.

August 2016 — Famous Twerp Justin Bieber Tries To Weigh In

Determined to be the most annoying person in any given situation, Justin Bieber eventually weighed into the fight. Posting a photo of himself FaceTiming a smiling Kanye to Instagram, Bieber captioned it “Taylor Swift what up.”

 

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He’d delete that caption later when Swift called him out for it, but the photo is still up.

November 2017 — Swift Drops Reputation

A year later, Taylor Swift dropped reputation, a heel turn of a record that is filled from front to back with snake imagery. An attempt to accept the “bad girl” image that had been thrust onto her, the album boldly proclaimed that the old Taylor was “dead”. It was an attempt to mark a new phase in the singer’s career, and to publicly respond to the controversies.

It wasn’t entirely successful. The album failed to pick up a single Grammy nomination, and was mocked by some of Swift’s fans and critics alike.

In fact, Swift’s next record, Lover, released in 2019, was a deliberate attempt at a new, sunnier direction.

March 2020 — The Video Leak

Not perturbed by the outbreak of a viral disease, some enterprising hacker released the full phone call between West and Taylor Swift. In the full chat, it is clear that Swift never approved the ‘bitch’ line. She also sounds generally uncomfortable, asking West if the line is “mean” before he recites it to her.

For many, this was proof that West was in the wrong, and that Swift had been telling the truth for all these years.

In response, the Reputation singer said that she had been “framed” but redirected her fans’ attention to more charitable causes.

March 2020 — Kim Kardashian Goes Rogue On Twitter

Mere hours after Swift’s public response, Kim Kardashian hit back in a long Twitter thread.

“Taylor Swift has chosen to reignite an old exchange — that at this point in time feels very self-serving given the suffering millions of real victims are facing right now,” she wrote. “I didn’t feel the need to comment a few days ago, and I’m actually really embarrassed and mortified to be doing it right now, but because she continues to speak on it, I feel I’m left without a choice but to respond because she is actually lying.”

So, is this over? I doubt it. These two — or three, really — will probably still be sparring in 11 years time, no matter what the world looks like then.

Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Junkee. He tweets @Joseph_O_Earp.