Taylor Swift has slammed Kim Kardashian for ‘taking her down psychologically’ and forcing her into hiding during their long-running feud – while subtly branding the reality star and her ex-husband Kanye West as ‘trash’.
The singer, 33, who has been named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year, dished on the dispute which started when Kim’s then-husband Kanye West wrote a 2016 song to include vulgar lyrics about the rising star.
He claimed Taylor had consented to the reference but, after denying it, Kim also weighed in and released what the popstar described as ‘an illegally recorded phone call’ between the pair which she claimed proved otherwise.
Taylor has now said that the public fallout said it felt like ‘a career death,’ adding: ‘Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me.’
Discussing the aftermath and the brutal toll that it took on her wellbeing, Taylor told the outlet: ‘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.’
Although she didn’t elaborate on where she moved to, Swift began dating British actor Joe Alwyn in late 2016, and it was widely rumored that she had rented a home in London in order to spend more time with him.
During that period, she all but vanished from the public eye, something that she says came as a result of the Kardashian and West fallout.
‘I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.’
Most of the pop icon’s next album Reputation, released in 2017, was aimed at her experience during the ordeal.
But the abundance of snake imagery used in veiled reference to mom-of-four Kim, now 43, only reignited the furor.
‘I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life,’ she explained.
Yet, in the years that followed, Taylor’s career has only gone from strength to strength – while many of her adversaries have suffered major setbacks, including Kanye.
The rapper, 46, recently lost a slew of endorsement deals after a series of anti-Semitic remarks.
Elaborating on how life in the limelight can be delicate, Taylor added: ‘Nothing is permanent. So I’m very careful to be grateful every second that I get to be doing this at this level, because I’ve had it taken away from me before.
‘There is one thing I’ve learned: My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art.’
However she took another swing and Kardashian, West, and anyone else who she believes has tried to stifle her success, remarking: ‘Trash takes itself out every single time.’
‘But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies,’ she said. ‘Trash takes itself out every single time.’
Taylor’s feud with Kim and Kanye had been bubbling to the surface as early as 2009, seemingly out of the blue, when 19-year-old Taylor was at the MTV Video Music Awards, accepting the Best Female Video award for You Belong with Me.
Suddenly, in the middle of her acceptance speech, Kanye jumped on the stage, grabbed the microphone out of her hands and bellowed: ‘Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you and Imma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!’
In a bid to diffuse the tension, Beyonce later called Taylor up on stage when she won Video of the Year for Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), and allowed the country music star a moment in the spotlight.
But the tension only continued when the father-of-four humiliated the star once again at the VMAs in 2015.
It appeared the pair were getting on as Kanye joked: ‘You know how many times they announced Taylor was going to give me the award ’cause it got them more ratings?’
However, Taylor later announced that his statement truly irked her, as he made out in public that it was for ratings, but in private, asked her to be on stage with him as it would ‘mean so much.’
Taylor later told Rolling Stone: ‘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 s**t. And I was so upset.’
By February 2016 the tensions reached an explosive boiling point after Kanye referenced Taylor in the lyrics of his hit, Famous.
Taylor took offense at the rapper’s lyric: ‘For all my South Side n****s that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b***h famous.’
The accompanying music video also depicted a naked Taylor lying in his bed next to him – along with a whole host of other celebrities – with nude Kim on the other side.
Kanye defended the line, claiming he had a conversation with Taylor about the lyrics in question ahead of time, which she denied.
Taylor continued to accuse Kanye of lying about asking her permission to reference her in his lyrics which prompted Kim to release a partial recording of the call in question.
‘I’m really glad you had the respect to call me that and tell me that as a friend, about the song. It’s just a really cool thing to do, and a really good show of friendship,’ Taylor is heard saying.
Taylor hit back by claiming that although Kanye spoke through some aspects of the lyrics, she did not consent to being referred to as a ‘b***h.’
The feud has continued to rumble on ever since – with veiled jibes being made on both sides of the divide.
However, more recently, Kim appeared to issue an update during a 2019 appearance on E! talk show alongside sisters Khloe and Kourtney.
Host Andy Cohen oversaw a game of called Squash That Beef in which the reality star dismissed the idea of any lingering tension between her and the Reputation singer.
‘Over it,’ she told Cohen of the feud.
Kim said she let time diffuse the matter, rather than hashing things out through a conversation.
Asked if the pair have spoken, she told Andy: ‘No. I feel like we’ve all moved on.’
Similarly, last year Kim sat down for an interview and was asked what her favorite Taylor Swift song was, to which she responded: ‘I really like a lot of her songs. They’re all super cute and catchy. I’d have to look in my phone to get a name.’
