For the first time, Taylor Swift has opened up in-depth about her infamous feud with Kanye West.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Swift recounted the relationship between herself and West, which has largely been told through Kim Kardashian's Snapchat and Swift's own songs until this point.
Of course, the drama started when West reportedly called Swift for permission to mention her name in his song "Famous," and she agreed to let him use the line "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex." Upon the song's release, that line was followed with, "Why? I made that bitch famous."
When Swift denied approving the "that bitch" line, Kardashian shared a recording of the conversation between Swift and West (which, to be fair, does only hear her agreeing to the first part of the line).
"Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a bitch," Swift told Rolling Stone. "That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn't just based on what happened on that phone call and with that song — it was kind of a chain reaction of things."
She admits to wanting to gain West's respect after he notoriously stage-crashed her VMAs acceptance speech in 2009, explaining that they had a rocky relationship afterwards.
She said:
When someone doesn't respect you so loudly and says you literally don't deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, "This guy who's antagonizing me, I just want his approval." But that's where I was. And so we'd go to dinner and stuff. And I was so happy, because he would say really nice things about my music. It just felt like I was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19.
Ahead of the 2015 VMAs, Swift said that West called her up and asked her to present the Video Vangaurd award to him:
He called me up, maybe a week or so before the event, and we had maybe over an hour-long conversation, and he's like, "I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me," and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, "MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!"
Technically, what he actually said was, "You know how many times they announced Taylor was going to give me the award 'cause it got them more ratings?"
Nevertheless, the comment rubbed Swift the wrong way, and she said it made her realize that he's "two-faced":
And I'm standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk shit. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn't go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, "You know what? I really don't want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I'm just going to move past this." So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song.
So when he ran part of the line by her, but not the full line, she decided, "I'm done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let's be on bad terms, but just be real about it."
She also accused West of messing with Drake's family life and career:
And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake's family and their lives. It's the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don't want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don't want to just talk about negative shit all day, but it's the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened.
As previously reported, Drake accused West of revealing the existence of his child to Pusha-T at the height of their feud. Pusha later countered that he learned about the baby from Drake's own friend and producer 40.
Despite all the drama, the opening track on Swift's latest album Lover, "I Forgot That You Existed," is clearly directed at West and hears her moving past the years-old feud.
Read the full Rolling Stone interview.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Swift recounted the relationship between herself and West, which has largely been told through Kim Kardashian's Snapchat and Swift's own songs until this point.
Of course, the drama started when West reportedly called Swift for permission to mention her name in his song "Famous," and she agreed to let him use the line "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex." Upon the song's release, that line was followed with, "Why? I made that bitch famous."
When Swift denied approving the "that bitch" line, Kardashian shared a recording of the conversation between Swift and West (which, to be fair, does only hear her agreeing to the first part of the line).
"Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a bitch," Swift told Rolling Stone. "That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn't just based on what happened on that phone call and with that song — it was kind of a chain reaction of things."
She admits to wanting to gain West's respect after he notoriously stage-crashed her VMAs acceptance speech in 2009, explaining that they had a rocky relationship afterwards.
She said:
When someone doesn't respect you so loudly and says you literally don't deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, "This guy who's antagonizing me, I just want his approval." But that's where I was. And so we'd go to dinner and stuff. And I was so happy, because he would say really nice things about my music. It just felt like I was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19.
Ahead of the 2015 VMAs, Swift said that West called her up and asked her to present the Video Vangaurd award to him:
He called me up, maybe a week or so before the event, and we had maybe over an hour-long conversation, and he's like, "I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me," and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, "MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!"
Technically, what he actually said was, "You know how many times they announced Taylor was going to give me the award 'cause it got them more ratings?"
Nevertheless, the comment rubbed Swift the wrong way, and she said it made her realize that he's "two-faced":
And I'm standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk shit. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn't go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, "You know what? I really don't want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I'm just going to move past this." So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song.
So when he ran part of the line by her, but not the full line, she decided, "I'm done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let's be on bad terms, but just be real about it."
She also accused West of messing with Drake's family life and career:
And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake's family and their lives. It's the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don't want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don't want to just talk about negative shit all day, but it's the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened.
As previously reported, Drake accused West of revealing the existence of his child to Pusha-T at the height of their feud. Pusha later countered that he learned about the baby from Drake's own friend and producer 40.
Despite all the drama, the opening track on Swift's latest album Lover, "I Forgot That You Existed," is clearly directed at West and hears her moving past the years-old feud.
Read the full Rolling Stone interview.