Depending on your time zone, you might’ve slept right through one of the biggest online celebrity throw downs of all time last night. Here’s everything you missed.
First, a little backstory. Kayne West released his song ‘Famous’ in the beginning of April as the first single off his newest album ‘The Life of Pablo’. Yes, that’s the song with the crazy controversial music video featuring a lot of naked “celebrities” in bed with each other—one of which was Taylor Swift. The song included the lyrics:
For all my Southside n***** that know me best
I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex
Why? I made that bitch famous
God damn
I made that bitch famous
After the song came out, Taylor made it clear that she did approve of those lyrics in any way. She even went so far as to allude to it in her Grammys acceptance speech, saying, “There’s gonna be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.”
When Kim Kardashian-West did an interview with GQ last month, she mentioned that Taylor might not have been so innocent in the whole situation after all. “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.” She continues on to add, “I don’t know why she just, you know, flipped all of a sudden.… It was funny because [on the call with Kanye, Taylor] said, ‘When I get on the Grammy red carpet, all the media is going to think that I’m so against this, and I’ll just laugh and say, ‘The joke’s on you, guys. I was in on it the whole time.’ And I’m like, wait, but [in] your Grammy speech, you completely dissed my husband just to play the victim again.”
Well, it turns out Kim had access to video of Kanye’s phone call with Taylor, which she went as far as to post on her Snapchat last night. In the video, Kanye read the lyrics to ‘Famous’ aloud to who we can only assume is Taylor (we hear her voice but obviously don’t see her face), who mentioned she’s “this close to overexposure” but that the lyrics were “like a compliment, kind of.”
Kanye said, “All I give a f*** about is you as a person and as a friend, I want things that make you feel good… I don’t want to do rap that makes people feel bad.”
Taylor replied, “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.”
After they discuss the flowers Kanye sent Taylor and their mutual respect for each other, the Snapchat videos end with Taylor’s last line:
“And you know, if people ask me about it I think it would be great for me to be like, ‘Look, he called me and told me the line before it came out. Jokes on you guys, We’re fine. You guys want to call this a feud; you want to call this throwing shade but right after the song comes out I’m going to be on a Grammys red carpet, and they’re going to ask me about it and I’ll be like, ‘He called me.’ It’s awesome that you’re so outspoken about this and be like, ‘Yeah, she does. It made her famous.’ Its more provocative to say ‘might still have sex…’ It’s doesn’t matter to me. There’s not like one [line] that hurts my feelings and one that doesn’t.”
Turns out there was one line that hurt her feelings, because Taylor latched onto the word “bitch” in the lyrics, tweeting:
That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet. pic.twitter.com/4GJqdyykQu
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 18, 2016
A few other celebrities took to Twitter to voice their feelings on the situation. Chloe Grace Moretz, who’s already had beef with the Kardashian clan for supposedly “slut-shaming” Kim’s naked selfie, tweeted, “Everyone in this industry needs to get their heads out of a hole and look around to realize what’s ACTUALLY happening in the REAL world,” and, “Stop wasting your voice on something so petulant and unimportant.”
Khloe Kardashian took it a maybe a little too far, tweeting:
https://twitter.com/khloekardashian/status/754930196378034176
Chloe quickly proved that the second photo wasn’t her, since she was wearing blue bathing suit bottoms with her red bathing suit top in the photo on the left, but the Chloe and Khloe probably won’t be reconciling anytime soon.
Selena Gomez also tweeted something similar to Chloe:
There are more important things to talk about… Why can't people use their voice for something that fucking matters?
— Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) July 18, 2016
However, social media was quick to point out that they didn’t remember seeing Selena use her voice when fellow Latinos were gunned down in Orlando, or anything on #BlackLivesMatter. Selena tweeted (and then deleted) a response, saying, “oh lol so that means if I hashtag something I save lives? No -I could give two f**** about ‘sides’. You don’t know what I do” Unfortunately, this prompted the hashtag #SelenaGomezIsOverParty to start trending on Twitter.
This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh
— Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) July 18, 2016
Theres a BIG difference between shading someone and speaking the truth!
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) July 18, 2016
This new wave of Taylor-related drama came quickly after Calvin Harris took to Twitter to clear up a similar “misrepresentation” of Taylor when it came to her involvement on his recent song.