Timeline of Kanye West and Taylor Swift's decade-long feud
From VMA's night to the release of the phone call, take a look back at Taylor Swift and Kanye West decade-long feud.
The beginning
At the night of MTV VMAs when Kanye West jumped on stage, and interrupted Taylor Swift acceptance speech of Best Female Video Award for 'You Belong With Me' and tell her the actual winner is Beyonce, that's where it all started: "Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you. I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!", Kanye said on stage.
(Photograph:Twitter)
Kanye West speaks about the night
Just a day after the VMAs, Kanye West appeared on 'The Tonight Show' With Jay Leno. "It's been a difficult day," he explained. "I'm just dealing with the fact that I hurt someone or took anything away from a talented artist or from anyone, because I only wanted to help people.I immediately knew in this situation that it was wrong. It's someone's emotions that I stepped on. It was rude, period."
(Photograph:Twitter)
Taylor's West-inspired song
A year later, Taylor Swift returned to the VMA stage with her West-inspired song 'Innocent', where she seemingly accepts West's apologies, "It's all right/ Just wait and see/ Your string of lights is still bright to me/ Who you are is not where you've been/ You're still an innocent/. It's okay/ Life is a tough crowd/ 32 and still growing up now."
(Photograph:Twitter)
Taylor and West at VMA's
At 2015 VMAs, six years after the controversy Taylor Swift presented Kanye West with the prestigious Video Vanguard Award. "I first met Kanye West six years ago, at this show, actually!" she joked at the beginning of her remarks. " It seemed like everyone in the world knew about our infamous encounter at the VMAs."
(Photograph:Twitter)
West calls Swift a 'b***h'
When things were returning to normal, Kanye West came with the new song 'Famous'. In the song, Kanye raps, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b***h famous."
Kanye claimed that lyrics have been approved by the Taylor, "I called Taylor and had an hour-long convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings."
While Taylor denied, "Kanye did not call for approval, but to ask her to release his single 'Famous' on her Twitter account. She declined that she was never made aware of the actual lyric, "I made that bitch famous.''
(Photograph:Twitter)
Grammy's acceptance speech
After a year, while accepting her Grammy for Album of the Year, Taylor Swift said, "I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments and your fame."
"But 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," she added.
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Kim Kardashian in feud
Kanye West's wife Kim Kardashian, came to husband's defence claiming that Taylor Swift approved the contoversial lyrics in 'Famous',
"She totally approved that," Kardashian said about the lyrics. "She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn't. I swear, my husband gets so much s**t for things he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved." Kardashian also claimed that phone conversation between Kanye West and Taylor Swift was recorded.
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Swift tells her side
After years, of talking of each other, Swift tells her side of the 'Famous' phone call. In an interview, Swift said, ''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 b***h. That was not just a singular event. 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."
(Photograph:Twitter)
Truth comes out
In March 2020, a video of the full version of the 25-minute phone call leaked in the Youtube and led to #KanyeWestIsOverParty trend on Twitter. The phone call revealed that Swift didn't lie. In the videos, West explained the controversial lyric, "To all my Southside n---as that know me best/ I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex" and the Swift tweet, as part of the release campaign, in the video, he wasn't seen calling her "that stupid dumb bi---,".
(Photograph:Twitter)