Taylor Swift Latest Show Proves She Isn’t Done Fanning the Flames of Her Kim Kardashian Feud
Taylor Swift still has some bad blood with Kim Kardashian, or at least that’s what the second of three performances in London seems to suggest.
During her June 22 show, where her boyfriend Travis Kelce was getting buddy-buddy with Tom Cruise, Swift performed a mashup of her track “thanK you aIMee” from The Tortured Poets Department and “Mean” from her Speak Now album. For those who don’t know “thanK you aIMee” is stylized in a way that resembles Kardashian’s first name. Before diving into the emotionally charged medley, Swift shared: “It really makes me think about how every time someone talks s***, it just makes me work even harder and it makes me even tougher,” she said, per Us Weekly.
For those who need a refresher of this longstanding feud, we need to go back to the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. That night, Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Music Video, claiming that Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. Fast forward to 2016, the animosity resurfaced when West released his song “Famous,” where he claimed he “might still have sex” with Swift because he “made that b**** famous.” This lyric caused quite a stir in the Swift community, to say the least.
Kardashian stepped in to defend her then-husband by posting an edited video on Instagram, which purportedly showed Swift approving the controversial lyric. However, Swift later revealed that the video was manipulated, calling it a “fully manufactured frame job” that deeply affected her mental health. Still, some folks couldn’t help but wonder if it was all just a publicity stunt.
Kardashian gave her final statement on the feud in 2020. She wrote: “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.”
While Kardashian has remained relatively quiet about the subtle shade track, wanting to put it all in the past, Swift’s pointed performance leaves little doubt that the tension between them lingers.
Before you go, click to see all of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s cutest PDA moments.