The singer opened up about her year living abroad as she hid from the repercussions of their dispute.
TAYLOR Swift has accused Kim Kardashian of taking her down psychologically after her public feud with the reality star and her then-husband Kanye West in 2016.
The rapper wrote vulgar lyrics about the pop star in his song Famous which she claimed to deny approval of before the release.
Now Taylor, 33, has slammed Kim, 43, for “taking her down psychologically” and “forcing her into hiding” for a year during their long-running dispute.
The singer – who was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year – has opened up about the altercation in an interview with the outlet.
She claimed that the public fallout felt like “a career death,” saying: “Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me.”
Taylor 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.”
She continued: “I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
Taylor’s next 2017 album Reputation was said to be largely focused on her experience with the incident.
The songwriter’s choice to use snake imagery in the album was claimed to be a veiled reference to Kim, which reignited the war between the celebrities and their fandoms.
“I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life,” she noted.
Taylor also spoke about how a life of fame can be fickle, adding: “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.
“But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies. Trash takes itself out every single time.”
INFAMOUS 2009 VMA MOMENT
The show-stopping moment that began it all occured was when a young Taylor was awarded the VMA for Best Female Video for “You Belong with Me” in 2009.
West climbed the stairs to interrupt Swift’s acceptance speech with the now-infamous proclamation: “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!”
Shortly after, a stunned Taylor told reporters, “I was standing on stage and I was really excited because I’d just won the award and then I was really excited because Kanye West was on stage … And then I wasn’t excited anymore after that.”
THE 2016 KIM/KANYE PHONE CALL
After about seven years of discord between Taylor and Kanye – beginning with their viral moment at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards – in February 2016, tensions reached an all-time high.
Kanye referenced Taylor in the lyrics of his hit, Famous, and the country star took offense at the rapper’s words: “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.”
When controversy broke out over the lyric, Kanye defended his choice, claiming he had a phone call with Taylor about the words ahead of time.
But Taylor denied that she approved the words, and continued to accuse the rapper of lying.
This decision prompted Kim to release a partial recording of the phone call where the singer allegedly permitted her to be mentioned in the track.
In the recording, Taylor was heard saying: “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 then quipped back that although Kanye discussed some of the lyrics with her, she did not agree to be called a “b***h.”
2016 TAYLOR GRAMMYS SPEECH
The singer got the last word (or so it seemed) on the Famous lyric when accepting her Grammy for Album of the Year in February 2016.
Swift indirectly took a swipe at Kanye during her empowering speech.
“[A]s the first woman to win album of the year at the Grammys twice,” Tylor said, “I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.”
She continued, “If you just focus on the work, and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there, and that will be the greatest feeling in the world.”
KIM CLAIMS TAYLOR ‘KNEW’ THE LYRIC ALL ALONG
Kim then clapped back in a July 2016 issue of GQ.
“She totally approved that,” Kim said referring to Swift’s knowledge of the lyrics of Famous before the song’s release.
Kim added: “She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn’t.
“I swear, my husband gets so much s— for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved.”
TAYLOR’S TEAM HITS BACK
A spokesperson for Swift then shared in a statement: “Taylor does not hold anything against Kim Kardashian as she recognizes the pressure Kim must be under and that she is only repeating what Kanye West has told her.
“However, that does not change the fact that much of what Kim is saying is incorrect.
“Kanye West and Taylor only spoke once on the phone while she was on vacation with her family in January of 2016 and they have never spoken since.
“Taylor has never denied that conversation took place.
“It was on that phone call that Kanye West also asked her to release the song on her Twitter account, which she declined to do.”
‘DISGUSTING’ FAMOUS VIDEO DROPS
Later that month, West then released his NSFW music video for “Famous” featuring a snippet of Swift and background audio from that infamous night at the MTV Video Music Awards.
The video also included completely nude renditions of Swift, George W. Bush, Anna Wintour, Donald Trump, Rihanna, Chris Brown, West, Kim, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlyn Jenner and Bill Cosby all laying in a large bed.
Swift’s friend Lena Dunham slammed West for the video in a Facebook post.
She called the music video “sickening” and “disturbing.”
KIM RELEASES VIDEO OF THE PHONE CALL
Kim then released video of Taylor and Kanye discussing the lyric in a series of Snapchat videos.
“It’s like a compliment,” Swift could be heard saying in the video after Kanye reads the lyric ” I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex” to her.
“What I give a f*** is you as a person, and as a friend, I want things that make you feel good,” Kanye said, and thanked Swift “for being like, so cool about it” after she told him she appreciated the “heads up” on the lyrics.
“I never would’ve expected you to like tell me about a line in your song,” Swift said.
“I mean, I don’t think anybody would listen to that and be like, ‘Oh, that’s a real diss.’ You gotta tell the story that way that it happened to you and the way you experienced it.”
She went on to add, “If people ask me about it, look, I think it would be great for me to be like, ‘He called me and told me before it came out … Joke’s on you, guys. We’re fine.’ ”
Swift’s rep told PEOPLE, however, that Taylor was never made aware of the following line.
“Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyrics, ‘I made that b**h famous.'”
2017: TAYLOR TAKES BACK HER ‘REPUTATION’
In 2017, Taylor put out her electronic-tinged “revenge” album Reputation, the rollout for which began with the music video for Look What You Made Me Do.
There were easter eggs throughout the video, including Taylor laying in a bathtub of jewels.
Fans theorized that Taylor was referencing Kim’s 2016 Paris robbery where the megastar was gagged and put in a bathtub as $10M in jewelry was stolen from her.
Taylor also teased the album with a series of mysterious Instagram videos depicting a serpent.
This appeared to be her way of reclaiming the snake emoji that riddled her Instagram comments section at the time (implying that she was a liar).
Kim first posted the snake emojis on the Snapchat video in 2016.
2018: TAYLOR HITS BACK ABOUT FALSE ‘NARRATIVE’
After the internet largely sided with Kim, Taylor released an Instagram post in 2018, famously attempting to take back her story.
“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that b***’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened.
“You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that bitch’ in front of the entire world,” she wrote in a note.
“I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009,” Swift continued.
She captioned the post, “That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet.”
It was then reported that Taylor would threaten legal action over the call being illegal under California State law.
A source told The Sun: “Taylor’s team believe that Kanye and Kim have quite clearly broken the law.”
FULL VIDEO LEAKS IN 2020
Four years after Kim shared the edited phone call between West and Swift discussing his “Famous” lyrics, extended portions of the lengthy conversation were leaked online late on March 20, 2020.
After telling Taylor he included a “very controversial line” about her in the song, she nervously asked Ye what the lyrics are.
A wary Swift asks if it’s “gonna be mean,” and Kanye acknowledged even then-wife Kardashian initially felt it was “too crazy” but had come around. “It’s like my wife’s favorite f—ing line,” he says.
“I’m going to send you the song and send you the exact wording and everything about it, right? And then we could sit and talk through it,” Kanye told Taylor, who has long contended she never heard the song before its release, at the end of the call.
2020 KIM TWEET
Kim then posted to X (formerly Twitter) in 2020: “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 ‘b***’ was used without her permission.”
