You may well have your own professional beefs to deal with this Monday morning, but at least they aren’t as publicly messy as the latest twist in the ongoing saga of Kim Kardashian and Kanye vs Taylor Swift.
Oh, it all went down late last night on Twitter, the modern battleground of many a real and semi-real celebrity spat.
So Kanye’s controversial latest single ‘Famous’ features the lyric: “For all my Southside n****s that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that bitch famous.”
West maintains that Taylor Swift gave him permission to use her name in that particular lyric, but Swift’s people firmly denied this, stating:
“Kanye did not call for approval, but to ask Taylor to release his single ‘Famous’ on her Twitter account. She declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric, ‘I made that bitch famous.’ ”
Soon after, in a Grammy acceptance speech, Swift appeared to reference the row, saying:
“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…”
Kanye’s wife Kim was not happy about this, and told GQ:
“She totally approved that…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 shit for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved.”
Kim also stated in that GQ interview that there was footage of the conversation that took place between Kanye and Taylor, during which he apparently ran the lyrics by her and she approved them – which Kim claims prompted a legal letter from Swift’s team demanding that the footage never be released.
Still with us? Good.
Cut to last night where Kim teased on Twitter that something was about to happen over on her Snapchat account.
do u guys follow me on snap chat? u really should 😉
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) July 18, 2016
She also posted this, which many are seeing as another dig at Swift:
Wait it's legit National Snake Day?!?!?They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days! 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) July 17, 2016
And this is what she posted: the video of the conversation between her husband and Swift.
(Best watch it quick, as it likely will be taken down at some point today)
Here is the entire conversation Taylor & Kanye had, judge for yourself. https://t.co/InTjvPGKe3
— Shady Music Facts (@ShadyMusicFeed) July 18, 2016
The good people at The Fader transcribed the conversation, bless them.
In the call you can hear Kanye run by Taylor the lyric, ‘For all my south side n****s that know me best, feel like me and Taylor might still have sex’.
Taylor’s reaction is: “I’m like this close to overexposure”, to which he counters: “Oh well this one is…I think this is a really cool thing to have.”
Taylor then says: “I know! I mean it’s like a compliment, kind of.”
Kanye then says he wanted to run it be her “as a friend” and that “I want things that make you feel good. I don’t wanna do rap that makes people feel bad.”
Then Taylor says: “Yeah. I mean, go with whatever line you think is better. It’s obviously very tongue in cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it, that’s really nice!”
She can also be heard telling him “the heads up is so nice”; “I just really appreciate it. I never would’ve expect you to tell me about a line in your song”; and “I’m really glad you had the respect to call me that and tell me that as a friend, about the song.”
However, the key issue now is that Kanye never appears to read Taylor the line “I made that bitch famous”, which seems to be what she – very understandably and rightly – has taken issue with, rather than the “tongue-in-cheek” line about them potentially having sex.
But Swift doesn’t need us to defend her – she’s more than capable of doing that herself, which she did on Instagram last night after the video footage came out.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BH_TCz4DeSj/
“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that bitch’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened,” she writes. “You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that bitch’ to the entire world.”
She then further denies giving approval to the final cut of the song, and then asks “to be excluded from this narrative, one that I never asked to be a part of, since 2009”.
The use of the word “narrative” is telling because, as with most things connected to Kim Kardashian, this might have been all to keep a profile on her reality show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which she has been heavily plugging on Twitter all weekend.
Let's Live Tweet tomorrow during Keeping Up With The Kardashians! Who's gonna watch with me on E!?
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) July 17, 2016
I see you guys loving Kanye's exclusive footage in tonights episode! He shoots everything while creating albums. So dope
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) July 18, 2016
Tune into Keeping Up With The Kardashians tonight on E to see all the BYS at @fergie Milf $ video! pic.twitter.com/eA7jn5gzj3
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) July 18, 2016
In which case: mission accomplished Kim.
