Kevin Mazur/MTV1415/WireImageTeam Kim, Team Taylor or Team No One?
After Sunday's episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians aired, Kim Kardashian shared a series of Snapchat videos that showed Kanye West on the phone with Taylor Swift six months ago. Everything seemed copacetic as the musicians discussed West's song, "Famous." Swift even approved the line, "To all my southside n---as that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex." At the time, West told her, "All I give a f--k 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." Swift said the name-drop was "like a compliment, kind of." What they didn't appear to discuss, though, was the lyric that followed: "Why? I made that bitch famous (God damn) / I made that bitch famous." (Swift made that clear during her 2016 Grammys speech for Album of the Year.)
West was vilified after the song's release and Swift's speech. "I really don't give a f--k, so I'll do whatever to protect my husband," Kardashian said in Sunday's episode. In GQ's July issue, she stood by her claim that Swift signed off on the line. "She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn't," she said. "I swear, my husband gets so much s--t for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved." A rep for Swift maintains she was never made aware of West's lyric, "I made that bitch famous."
After the Snapchat videos went viral, #KimExposedTaylorParty trended on Twitter.
Swift shared her side of the story via Instagram Sunday. "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. You don't get to control someone's emotional response to being called 'that bitch' in front of the entire world. Of course I wanted to like the song. I wanted to believe Kanye when he told me that I would love the song. I wanted us to have a friendly relationship. He promised to play the song for me, but he never did," she told her fans. "While I wanted to be supportive of Kanye on the phone call, you cannot 'approve' a song you haven't heard. Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination."
Referencing West storming the stage at the MTV VMAs seven years ago, she said, "I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009."
As memes were made, stars took sides in the stars' social media squabble, including Swift's friend and squad member Selena Gomez. In a series of tweets, the "Kill Em With Kindness" singer told her 44.1 million followers, "There are more important things to talk about...Why can't people use their voice for something that f--king matters? Truth is last thing we need right now is hate, in any form. This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh." The Twitter trolls then turned on Gomez, as #SelenaGomezIsOverParty #GoToSleepSelena trended.
Meanwhile, Demi Lovato and Pharrell Williams liked tweets that were written in support of Kardashian; Williams un-liked the tweet after fans took notice. Zendaya liked two tweets after Kardashian's Snapchat story took the Internet by storm. One message included two photos of Zendaya and Swift posing with past and present squad members. "My girl zendaya knew better," the caption read. In the second tweet, a Twitter user wrote, "I'm glad zendaya was never really down with that whole Taylor squad s--t." Zendaya later un-liked the tweets. The drama even affected live TV, as Billy Eichner was a guest on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live when he was asked what he thought of people "trying to take down" Swift. "I think Taylor Swift likes to be talked about and ultimately likes everything that happening on some level," he said.
Chloë Grace Moretz, who's had her own highly publicized issues with Kardashian in the past, chimed in, too. "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," the Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising star tweeted. "Stop wasting your voice on something so petulant and unimportant."
In Sunday's episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kris Jenner told Kardashian to call Swift and "make amends." But as her Snapchat followers would soon discover, she had no intention of doing so. "Thank you for your lovely advice," she said, "but I'm not going to take it."