Taylor Swift has reignited her explosive feud with Kim Kardashian by releasing a diss track aimed at the reality star.
The singer, 34, officially dropped The Tortured Poets Department – her 11th studio album – on Friday, which includes 31 new songs.
After releasing her new album at midnight ET (2am UK time), Taylor took to Instagram to announce her latest record was actually a surprise ‘double album,’ after sparking a flurry of speculation by posting a countdown clock on social media.
And fans are convinced the 24th track – thanK you aIMee – is aimed at Kim, as the letters K,I and M are capped up to spell out her name.
Taylor sings in one line: ‘There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you and a plaque underneath it/That threatens to push me down the stairs, at our school.’
Fans are convinced one of the 31 tracks – thaK you aIMee – is aimed at Kim, as the letter K,I and M are capped up to spell out her name
‘All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed ‘F**k you, Aimee’ to the night sky, as the blood was gushin’ / But I can’t forget the way you made me heal.’
She goes on to add: ‘And it wasn’t a fair fight, or a clean kill / Each time that Aimee stomped across my gravе / And then she wrote hеadlines/ In the local paper, laughing at each baby step I’d take.’
Taylor concludes by confirming she’s changed the name of the woman she’s singing about – further fuelling speculation the track is about Kim.
She also seems to reference Kim’s 10-year-old daughter North West dancing to her 2014 single Shake It Off on TikTok, finding it ironic as the ‘song is about you’.
She sings: ‘And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues/And one day, your kid comes home singin’ a song that only us two is gonna know is about you.’
Sharing their thoughts on social media platform X, fans wrote: ‘The ultimate f**k you’;
‘OMFG thanK you aIMee is about Kim Kardashian. This album is SO unhinged’;
‘Kim your day of reckoning is here’; ‘Welcome to your tape’
Taylor and Kim’s longtime row actually began thanks to the singer’s dispute with Kanye in 2009, when he famously stormed the stage at the VMAs when she won the prize for Best Female Video.
A furious Kanye took to the stage to declare that Beyonce should have won the prize, telling Taylor: ‘Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you. I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.’
The moment was quickly slammed by furious viewers, as Taylor was then unable to finish her acceptance speech, though Beyonce later invited her on-stage while she accepted the Video Of The Year prize.
Taylor was subject to stunning close-ups.
After tying the knot with Kanye in 2014, Kim was proudly at his side when he received the coveted Vangard Award at the VMAs.
Appearing to show their feud was quashed, it was Taylor who presented him with the prize, and the pair appeared to have brought an end to their row.
However, in a later interview, Taylor noted that this was far from the case, as Kanye declared on stage that she was asked to present the award ‘for ratings,’ and she refused to speak to him backstage.
She told Rolling Stone: ‘I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body.
‘I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk s**t. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go.’
Adding an explosive new level to their feud, Kanye shocked the internet when he released his new song Famous.
It featured the vulgar lyrics ‘I feel like me and Taylor Swift might still have sex/Why? I made that b***h famous.’
Taylor also seems to reference Kim’s 10-year-old daughter North West dancing to Shake It Off on TikTok back in January, she writes:# your kid comes home singin’ a song that only us two is gonna know is about you’
Taylor sings in one line: ‘There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you and a plaque underneath it/That threatens to push me down the stairs, at our school.’
Taylor also seems to hit out at Kim’s 10-year-old daughter North West as she sings: ‘And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues/And one day, your kid comes home singin’ a song that only us two is gonna know is about you.’
The track sparked a huge backlash from Taylor’s fans, and Kanye furiously defended himself in a now-deleted tweet that said: ‘I called Taylor and had an hour-long convo with her about the line, and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings.’
Taylor’s representative then hit back, telling People: ‘Kanye did not call for approval, but to ask Taylor to release his single Famous on her Twitter account.
‘She declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric, ‘I made that b***h famous.”’
Kim sparked a social media firestorm when she shared a Snapchat video of Kanye during a phonecall with Taylor,
where the rapper appeared to ask her for permission to include lyrics about her in his new song.
After rapping the line, West can be heard saying: ‘I think this is a really cool thing to have.’
Swift responds: ‘I know, it’s like a compliment, kind of. Yeah, I mean, what’s dope about the line is it’s very tongue in cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it, that’s really nice.’
Taylor became the subject of furious backlash when the video was shared online, with many accusing her of being a snake.
After Kim’s post made her the subject of multiple ‘snake’ memes, Taylor stood by her version of events in a furious social media statement.
She wrote: ‘That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet.’
The statement read: ‘Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that b****’ 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 b****’ in front of the entire world.’
It is the Bad Blood singer’s 11th studio album since she burst onto the music scene in 2006.
‘He promised to play the song for me, but he never did. 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. I would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be a part of, since 2009.’
After taking a lengthy break from the spotlight, Taylor made a sensational return with her track Look What You Made Me Do.
In the song, and it’s accompanying video, the star took aim at the trolls who had furiously branded her a ‘snake’ after Kim’s phonecall leak.
One clip from the video shows Taylor sitting on a throne surrounded by snakes, a pointed dig at Kim and Kanye.
Later the line ‘Et tu Brute’ is seen carved onto her throne — apparently bemoaning former friend Kim’s apparent betrayal.
After several years of relative silence between Taylor and Kanye, the star furiously took to Instagram to hit out at celebrity manager Scooter, who had purchased the rights to her masters in 2019.
In her post she once again took a pointed dig at Kanye and his 2016 track Famous.
She wrote: ‘ Some fun facts about today’s news: I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world.
‘All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years. Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it.
‘Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video that strips my body naked.’
In her track Miss Americana, Taylor noted that she felt ‘alone and bitter’ during her fall-out with Kanye and Kim, adding that she was branded ‘wicked and evil’.
She said: ‘When people decided I was wicked and evil and conniving and not a good person, that was the one I couldn’t really bounce back from, because my whole life was centred around it.’
‘I felt really alone, I felt really bitter, I felt sort of like a wounded animal lashing out. I figured I had to reset everything.’
Taylor and Kim’s longtime row actually began thanks to the singer’s dispute with Kanye in 2009, when he famously stormed the stage at the VMAs
The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology – The FULL tracklist
1. Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)
2. The Tortured Poets Department
3. My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys
4. Down Bad
5. So Long, London
6. But Daddy I Love Him
7. Fresh Out The Slammer
8. Florida!!! (feat. Florence + The Machine)
9. Guilty As Sin?
10. Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me
11. I Can Fix Him (No I Really Can)
12. loml
13. I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
14. The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived
15. The Alchemy
16. Clara Bow
17. The Black Dog
18. Imgonnagetyouback
19. The Albatross
20. Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus
21. How Did It End?
22. So High School
23. I Hate It Here
24. Thank you Aimee
25. I Look in People’s Windows
26. The Prophecy
27. Cassandra
28. Peter
29. The Bolter
30. Robin
31. The Manuscript
In the leaked footage , Kanye is seen informing Taylor he is writing a song about her and asking her if she could hype it up by tweeting about it.
Kanye tells her: ‘It has a very controversial line at the beginning of the song about you.’
Kanye then told Taylor she ‘sounded sad’, and the singer questioned if the lyrics were ‘mean’, at which point he reassured her that he didn’t think they were.
He then says the lyric: ‘To all my Southside n***as that know me best / I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.’
Taylor laughs and says: ‘That’s not mean.’
Kanye goes on: ‘If you felt that it’s funny and cool and hip hop, and felt like it’s the College Dropout and Ye that you love, people would be way into it, and that’s why I think it’s super genius to have you be the one that says, ‘Oh I like this song a lot… this is cool.’
Taylor then tells Kanye she needs some time to think about it, adding: ‘When you hear something for the first time you need to think about it, because it is absolutely crazy.’
There is no mention Kanye would call her a ‘b***h’ or suggest he ‘made her famous’ during the phone call.
Taking to social media after the phonecall was leaked, Taylor said the conversation is ‘proving that I was telling the truth the whole time about *that call* (you know, the one that was illegally recorded that somebody edited, and manipulated in order to frame me and put me, my family, and fans through hell for 4 years)…’
In her Instagram Story post, Swift basically asked people to now move on from the headline-grabbing infamous feud between her and Kim and Kanye that stems from the rapper’s lyrics in his track Famous.
She started her post by saying: ‘Instead of answering those who are asking how I feel about the video footage that leaked…’ before adding in parentheses how she does feel.
She then concluded: ‘SWIPE UP to see what really matters.’
The singer directed her followers to the Feeding America website, suggesting they donate to the nonprofit organization that operates a network of food banks helping people impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Days after the phone call was leaked, Kim posted a series of messages claiming Swift is not being fully truthful about the 2016 phone call with her and Kanye about the song Famous – and the ongoing dispute as to whether Swift was aware of West’s lyrics, in which he called her a ‘b****.’
She also slammed Taylor for her timing in rehashing the feud as the country remains locked down amid the coronavirus pandemic.