7th December, 2023
By Taiwo Okanlawon
American singer and songwriter Taylor Swift recalls how a 2016 feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian took her down psychologically.
The Grammy winner, recently named TIME’s ‘Person of the Year 2023’, spoke about some of the most defining moments of her career in an interview with the news outlet.
In 2016, West put out a track titled ‘Famous’ wherein he rapped, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that b—h famous”.
This was after West infamously hijacked the microphone from Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009. West had interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech onstage while arguing that Beyoncé should have been the winner of the ‘Female Video of the Year’ award — not her (Swift).
Swift immediately opposed the ‘Famous’ lyrics. She, however, faced criticism after Kim, West’s then-wife, leaked a phone call recording between the pair in which the songstress appeared to have approved the song.
A longer version of the video also vindicated Swift after it showed she had not approved of the “bitch” line.
In an interview with TIME Magazine, Swift said the feud with the former couple “damaged” her reputation.
Swift argued that Kim “illegally” recorded and edited their conversation to make her seem like a liar.
She said the incident affected her “psychologically”, adding that she pushed people away because she “could not trust anymore”.
“Make no mistake – my career was taken away from me,” she said.
“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 have never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I did not 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 did not trust anyone any more. I went down really, really hard.”
Kim and West are yet to respond to Swift — as of the time of this report.