Taylor Swift (33) was named “Person of the Year 2023” by “Time” magazine. The choice came as no surprise to many, as the US singer is currently at the absolute peak of her career. She revealed in the interview with the magazine that she had to worry about this career before. The reason was a previous argument with fellow musician Kanye West (46) and his then wife Kim Kardashian (43). The singer thought that this meant the death of her career and that her “career had been taken away” without having made a mistake herself.
The feud between Kanye West and Taylor Swift began back in 2009. West stormed onto the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards when Swift was presented with the award and grabbed the microphone. He was of the opinion that Beyoncé (42), not Swift, should have received the award for best video. In 2016, West released the song “Famous,” which referenced the incident. In it he sings: “I have a feeling that Taylor and I might still have sex. Why? I made the bitch famous.” Swift then criticized the song.
However, the rapper always claimed that Swift had agreed to the song over the phone. His wife Kim Kardashian not only called the singer a “snake” on Twitter, but also published several videos on Snapchat in 2016 that were supposed to prove that there had actually been a conversation between the two artists. The singer was then accused of dishonesty; West’s fans in particular fired heavily against the musician. However, Swift insisted that she never agreed to allow West to call her a “bitch” – West did not discuss that line with her. Variety reported in 2020 that the conversation did take place, but West did not mention the offensive word “bitch.”
“It was a completely fabricated plot with an illegally recorded phone call that Kim Kardashian edited and then published to tell everyone that I was a liar,” Swift explains in the “Time” interview. “It took me psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to talk on the phone. I pushed most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I fell really, really low.”
She goes on to say that she learned from this to concentrate on her work. “I make a point of being grateful every second that I can do this at this level because it’s been taken away from me before.” Her answer to everything that happens, good or bad, is her music. “I also learned that there’s no point in actively trying to defeat your enemies. It takes care of itself every time.”
Swift had already commented on the consequences of the celebrity dispute in the past. “I don’t think there are many people who really understand what it’s like when millions of people loudly hate you,” she said in a “Vogue” interview in August 2019. Music was the only way for her , “to survive,” according to Swift. “It was the only way I could stay sane and tell the story of what it’s like to go through something so humiliating.”
