Taylor Swift jokes about being interrupted by the crowd at the Eras Tour:
“People chanting your name, it’s really the only way to be interrupted… and I would know.” pic.twitter.com/t1uS2sIDxT
— Pop Base (@PopBase) August 28, 2023
The incident took place when Taylor was fresh on the scene as a rising young artist. Kanye took the microphone from her in the middle of her acceptance speech and declared that Beyonce should have won the award instead. Later that night, Beyonce did win for Video of the Year, and she graciously called Taylor back to the stage to let her have her moment.
Of course, this headline-making incident was just the beginning of a years-long feud between Taylor and Kanye. The two briefly made up in 2015, and Taylor even sang ‘Ye’s praises while presenting him with the Video Vanguard Award at the that year’s VMAs. Just months later, though, Kanye would break Taylor’s trust once again with the release of his song “Famous,” in which he raps, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, why? I made that b**** famous.” He then proceeded to include a naked wax figure of Taylor in the video for the song.
While Kanye insisted that he called Taylor up and got her approval for the song, she clapped back and explained that she never previously heard the lyric where the rapper called her “that b****” on the track. To try and defend Kanye, his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, released illegal video recordings of the pair’s phone call.
Taylor and Kanye at the 2015 VMAs. (Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock)
The Internet famously turned against Taylor at this time, leading her to go into hiding for several months before resurfacing in the summer of 2017. She clapped back at Kim and Kanye on songs like “Look What You Made Me Do” and “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” on her 2017 album Reputation. Then, in 2020, the full video version of the phone call between Kanye and Taylor leaked, proving that he never ran the “that b****” lyric by her.
In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Taylor explained that several events led up to the implosion of their pair’s friendship in 2016. “Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a b****,” she explained. “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.”
“When I heard the song, I was like, ‘I’m done with this,” she concluded. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.”