TIME honored Taylor Swift as the person of the year for 2023, where she candidly reflected on pivotal moments in her life and career. Swift didn’t hold back in addressing her past feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
In 2016, Kanye West dropped a track titled Famous, featuring lyrics like “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that b—h famous.” Following the release, Swift’s spokesperson issued a statement asserting that the artist was “never made aware” of the controversial lyric. In response, Kim Kardashian, West’s wife at the time, insisted that Swift and her husband had reached an agreement on the song’s content during a pre-release phone call. The reality star shared video clips of the phone call.
While speaking to TIME, Swift 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.”
The 12-time Grammy winner faced a shift in public opinion, leading her to essentially withdraw from the spotlight. In 2017, she made a comeback with her appropriately titled album, Reputation.
“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.”
While neither West nor Kardashian has commented on the recent interview, when the extended version of the call surfaced in 2020, Kardashian addressed the situation.
“Nobody ever denied the word ‘bitch’ was used without her permission … I never edited the footage – I only posted a few clips on Snapchat to make my point.” She added that Swift, “forced me to defend [West].”
