Taylor Swift is sharing her story, and it will not be edited. The singer was named Time’sPerson of the Year, and she looked into some of the career-defining moments of her life. One of those moments, which she called “career death” has Kanye West and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian at the center. Their drama starts in 2008, but came to a head in 2016 when Kardashian shared a phone call between West and Swift after the release of his song, “Famous.” Read everything you need to know about the drama below.
© GettyImagesHow the drama all started
Everyone remembers the infamous moment at the 2009 VMAs when West jumped on stage during Swift’s speech for the Best Female Video category for ‘You Belong With Me,’ to take the mic out of her hand and share his thoughts. Swift has just beat out Beyoncé‘s ’Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It). I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!”
The moment caused a flurry of opinions and became one of the most infamous moments in pop culture history. They publicly reconciled at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards when Swift presented West with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.
Despite the reconcilation, the drama was rehashed in 2016 with West’s song, ‘Famous,’ which included sexually explicit lyrics about the singer. ‘I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous, he sings.
After West released this song, there was a lot of anger towards the lyrics, and Swift’s rep told PEOPLE Swift “declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyrics, ‘I made that bitch famous.’‘
The leaked phone call
The scandal led Kim to post footage of a phone call between West and Swift on social media that appeared as if Swift had approved the lines. Everything then turned on the “Love Story” singer with people painting her as a ‘snake.’
Swift got justice in 2020 when someone leaked the full 25-minute phone call that transpired in 2016 between West and Swift. Ye gives her a version of the ‘I made that bitch famous’ line that reads more mildly as ‘I made her famous.’
The repercussions it had on Swift’s mental health
Speaking about the drama, Swift told Rolling Stone, “Make no mistake—my career was taken away from me.” She described it as “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.”
Swift said the moment took her to a place psychologically that she had never experienced, and had huge repercussions on the way that she lived her life, notably in private. The singer said she pushed away most people in her life because she didn’t trust anyone. ‘I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls,’ she explained.
What Kim Kardashian said about the situation
© GettyImagesKardashian addressed the situation in 2020 after the phone call was leaked, and Swift said she felt vindicated. The Skims founder took to Twitter to say Swift “has chosen to reignite an old exchange’ that ‘feels very self-serving given the suffering millions of real victims are facing right now.”
“Kanye has documented the making of all of his albums for his personal archive; however, he has never released any of it for public consumption, and the call between the two of them would have remained private or would have gone in the trash had she not lied and forced me to defend him,” she tweeted.
‘To be clear, the only issue I ever had around the situation was that Taylor lied through her publicist who stated that ‘Kanye never called to ask for permission...‘’ They clearly spoke, so I let you all see that. Nobody ever denied the word ‘bitch’ was used without her permission,” she continued.
We may not hear Kardashian talk about the latest interview, because she also tweeted, “This will be the last time I speak on this because honestly, nobody cares. Sorry to bore you all with this. I know you are all dealing with more serious and important matters.”
