Taylor Swift Talks Feud

Taylor Swift is giving the “context” behind her highly-publicized 2016 feud with Kanye West.

Swift said in a new interview with Rolling Stone that West’s “two-faced” nature played a major role in her conflict and infamous phone call with the rapper. Swift and West clashed in 2016 after West referenced Swift in his The Life of Pablo track “Famous,” in which Ye proclaims he “made that b*tch famous.” Swift denied she approved the lyrics, leading West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, to release a secret recording of a phone call West and Swift had about the song.

“The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to it. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a bitch. That was not just a singular event,” she explained. “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.

Swift and West’s feud initially began in 2009 after West interrupted Swift’s speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. Swift recalled how she sought West’s approval after the incident and was thrilled when the rapper was friendly. “I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me – because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me,” she said. “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,” she explained.

Swift said she was flattered when West called her ahead of the 2015 MTV VMAs to ask if she would present him the Video Vanguard Award at the ceremony. “He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that,” she recalled. “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!'” she said. “I realized he is so two-faced.” Swift described “standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body,” before refusing to go backstage to meet West after the show.

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Swift said West sent her flowers to apologize the day after the 2015 VMAs. She believed they were “back on good terms” when West called to discuss his song “Famous.” “And then when I heard the song, I was like, ‘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 recalled.

Swift previously said in the September issue of Vogue that the backlash she faced after Kardashian released the phone call with West was an “isolating” and “humiliating” experience. “A mass public shaming, with millions of people saying you are quote-unquote canceled, is a very isolating experience,” she said. “I don’t think there are that many people who can actually understand what it’s like to have millions of people hate you very loudly.”