Keeping up with Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian’s feud is no easy feat.
The Grammy-winning singer and the reality star have been at odds since 2016 — and Swift fanned the flames of their feud with her 2024 album, “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.”
Before they began butting heads, however, Kardashian shared her “love” of the pop superstar with “Entertainment Tonight” in 2009 and called herself the “biggest fan.”
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Three years later, the duo posed for smiling snaps together at the MTV Video Music Awards. They did the same at the 2015 awards ceremony, even hugging at the Grammys that year.
Their friendship seemed unlikely, as Kardashian’s then-husband, Kanye West, infamously interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech during the 2009 VMAs.
Now that Swift and Kardashian are on the outs again, Page Six is breaking down their nearly decade-long dispute.
June 2016
West rapped that he “might still have sex” with Swift and “made that bitch famous” in his February 2016 song “Famous” — and when she took issue with the lyrics, Kardashian stepped into the scandal.
The “Kardashians” star claimed in June 2016 that West had followed “proper protocol” and got “approval” from Swift, telling GQ, “She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn’t.”
Kardashian went on to shade the singer on social media, and her fans followed suit with snake emojis.
Swift’s rep subsequently called “much of” Kardashian’s comment “incorrect.”
The spokesperson clarified, “Taylor does not hold anything against Kim Kardashian, as she recognizes the pressure Kim must be under and that she is only repeating what she has been told by Kanye West.”
July 2016
The “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” alum explained why she “wanted to defend” West in a July 2016 episode of her family’s E! reality show.
“I never talk s–t about anyone publicly, especially in interviews,” she said. “But I … had so had it.”
When Kris Jenner nudged her daughter to call Swift and apologize, Kardashian replied, “Thank you for your lovely advice, but I’m not going to take it.”
The Skims creator went on to publicly release clips from West’s phone call with Swift via Snapchat, with the “Shake It Off” singer calling the “sex” line a “compliment.”
“If people ask me about it, look, I think it would be great for me to be like, ‘He called me and told me before it came out. … Joke’s on you, guys. We’re fine,'” she said at the time.
However, Swift’s rep clarified that she had not been made aware of the line about West making “that bitch famous.”
“It never happened,” Swift herself clarified via Instagram. “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.”
She added, “You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that bitch’ in front of the entire world.”
August 2017
Swift’s November 2017 album, “Reputation,” was widely believed to be a revenge record amid her feud with Kardashian and West — and her “Look What You Made Me Do” music video seemed to prove it.
The footage, released that August, featured past versions of Swift, including the then-19-year-old holding her award in confusion as West interrupted her at the VMAs.
In the video, as well as in her promotion of the album, she continuously used serpent imagery to reference the snake emojis left in her comments section by Kardashian fans when the phone call was released.
January 2019
Kardashian claimed she was “over” the feud during a January 2019 “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” appearance.
“I feel like we’d all moved on,” the Hulu personality claimed.
Elsewhere in the interview, however, Kardashian said she would rather be stuck in an elevator with Drake, another of West’s nemeses, than Swift.
March 2019
While speaking to Elle in March 2019 about being called “a snake on the internet” and reclaiming that imagery with “Reputation,” she hinted that Kardashian had yet to apologize.
“It would be nice if we could get an apology from people who bully us,” the “Bad Blood” singer told the magazine. “But maybe all I’ll ever get is the satisfaction of knowing I could survive it, and thrive in spite of it.”
She noted that “disarming someone’s petty bullying can be as simple as learning to laugh.”
March 2020
Swift and West’s full phone call leaked online in March 2020, with the Yeezy creator saying, “I’m going to send you the song and send you the exact wording and everything about it, right? And then we could sit and talk through it.”
In her Instagram Story response, Swift doubled down on her claim that the call had been “illegally recorded” and “edited and manipulated in order to frame” her.
Kardashian clapped back later that same day, alleging that “nobody ever denied the word ‘bitch’ was used without her permission.”
December 2021
Kardashian was asked about her favorite Swift record in a December 2021 episode of the “Honestly with Bari Weiss” podcast.
“I really like a lot of her songs,” she said at the time. “They’re all super cute and catchy.”
The makeup mogul noted that she would “have to look in [her] phone to get a name [of an album],” though.
January 2023
In January 2023, Kardashian and West’s eldest daughter, North West, danced to Swift’s “Shake It Off” in a TikTok video.
Swift seemingly referenced the social media upload in her April 2024 diss track “thanK you aIMee.”
She crooned, “One day, your kid comes home singin’ / A song that only us two is gonna know is about you.”
December 2023
Swift reignited the feud when she was profiled as Time magazine’s Person of the Year in December 2023.
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“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before,” she recalled. “I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls.
“I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard,” Swift continued, comparing it to a “career death.”
April 2024
Fans were quick to notice the capitalization in the “thanK you aIMee” song title in April 2024, believing the song shading a high school bully was actually about Kardashian.
Swift referenced a “bronze, spray-tanned” woman in the track who her mom “wish[es] were dead.”
“All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’,” she sang. “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.”
