Taylor Swift’s rift with Kim Kardashian began when the reality star weighed in on Taylor’s fallout with her now-ex husband Kanye West, by releasing a phone call that Taylor says ultimately ruined her career.
And in her new album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Taylor seemed to call out Kim’s actions directly with a song called ‘thanK you aIMee’ all about a “school bully”.
After fans heard the song and quickly came to the conclusion it was about Kim, The Kardashians star cryptically responded by saying, ‘life’s good’ after Jimmy Kimmel referenced the track in his opening monologue before interviewing Kim.
But what happened between Taylor and Kim, what happened on that phone call, and did Kim and Kanye ever apologise?
What did Kim Kardashian do to Taylor Swift?
Kim and Taylor’s rift began when Kim put out an edited phone call to try and prove Taylor had agreed to Kanye calling her a ‘b***h’ in his song ‘Famous’.
If we’re going way back, Kim and Taylor’s feud is actually a branch off of Taylor’s fallout with Kanye West, Kim’s ex husband. It all began at the 2009 at the MTV Video Music Awards when Kanye grabbed Taylor’s microphone to tell the audience Beyoncé should have won Video of the Year instead of the then-19-year-old.
And in 2016 things worsened when Kanye released ‘Famous’ in which he sings: ‘I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, why? I made that b***h famous’ just months after they’d patched things up.
It was soon clear Taylor never agreed to the ‘b***h’ reference and their feud only developed from there, despite being on the phone months prior – a conversation during which Kanye called the pop star his ‘friend.’
Kim released an edited version of the phone call to try and portray the narrative Taylor had agreed to the line, but a full recording was later shared and emancipated Taylor.
What was the phone call between Kanye West and Taylor Swift?
In 2016 Kanye called Taylor to run some ideas by her that he had for his single ‘Famous’, specifically a line about her. In the phone call, Kanye told her: “Well, what I give a f*** about is just you as a person, as a friend….”
The lyrics he shared with Taylor were: “To all my Southside n***** that know me best, I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex,” and another version which ended with, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” which Taylor responded on the call with: “That’s not mean,” and advised him to go with whatever line he thought was better, pointing out “it’s obviously tongue-in-cheek either way”.
While Taylor remained adamant Kanye had never told her the ‘b***h’ reference, Kim claimed months later that Taylor ‘totally approved’ of the controversial lyric, leaking footage of their call weeks later. Taylor’s since called this moment ‘career death’.
It wasn’t until 2020 the entire phone call was released, which Variety published in full as a transcript.
In her interview with TIME magazine for her Person of the Year shoot Taylor said of the leaked call: “Make no mistake—my career was taken away from me.”
She explained: “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’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.”
Did Kanye West apologise to Taylor Swift?
Did Kanye apologise for ruining her VMAs moment? Yes.
Taylor said on ABC Radio two days after the 2009 awards ceremony to say Kanye called her to say sorry for stealing her spotlight. She said: “Kanye did call me and he was very insincere in his apology, and I accepted that apology.”
Before the ‘Famous’ lyric scandal, they reached a place where they both had mutual respect for each other, with Tay telling Vanity Fair in 2015: “I feel like I wasn’t ready to be friends with him until I felt like he had some sort of respect for me, and he wasn’t ready to be friends with me until he had some sort of respect for me — so it was the same issue, and we both reached the same place at the same time.”
However, did Kanye apologise for calling her a ‘b***h’ on his 2016 song ‘Famous’? No.
Did Kim Kardashian apologise to Taylor Swift?
Kim hasn’t yet apologised to Taylor for leaking the phone call between her and her ex-husband. Kim and Kanye divorced in 2021 and Kim has been open about moving on from their relationship in recent episodes of The Kardashians.
According to TMZ, Taylor would be willing to accept an apology from the reality TV queen but has never received one.
