The Kanye West/Taylor Swift saga turned a new page when Yeezy rapped “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous” on The Life of Pablo. The 26-year-old pop star was reportedly shocked and offended by the line and her acceptance speech at the Grammys in February seemed to respond to West as she encouraged her fans to not let anyone take credit for their accomplishments.
In a newly published interview with GQ, Kim Kardashian, West’s wife, rebukes Swift’s claim that she wasn’t aware of the lyric beforehand, and says there’s video footage of a conversation Swift and West had about it.
The rapper previously stated that Swift had approved the line and that he had offered for her to premiere the track on her Twitter page. Kardashian retells this account and says that they caught the conversation on video because West enlists videographers to film his entire album process for documentary purposes. She says that she doesn’t understand why Swift made such a big deal about the lyric.
Kardashian says that Swift “totally gave the okay” over the phone. “Rick Rubin was there. So many respected people in the music business heard that [conversation] and knew,” she says. “I mean, he’s called me a bitch in his songs. That’s just, like, what they say. I never once think, [gasping] ‘What a derogatory word! How dare he?’ Not in a million years. I don’t know why she just, you know, flipped all of a sudden … It was funny because [on the call with Kanye, Taylor] said, ‘When I get on the Grammy red carpet, all the media is going to think that I’m so against this, and I’ll just laugh and say, ‘The joke’s on you, guys. I was in on it the whole time.’ And I’m like, wait, but [in] your Grammy speech, you completely dissed my husband just to play the victim again.”
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The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star says that Kanye reached out for and received approval from Swift before releasing the song.
“She totally approved that,” she says. “She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn’t. I swear, my husband gets so much shit for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved … What rapper would call a girl that he was rapping a line about to get approval?”
Kardashian also says that Swift’s attorney sent West a letter requesting that the footage be destroyed.
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“Then they sent an attorney’s letter like, ‘Don’t you dare do anything with that footage,’ and asking us to destroy it,” she says before adding that the filming of the conversation was normal for any type of video project. “When you shoot something, you don’t stop every two seconds and be like, ‘Oh wait, we’re shooting this for my documentary.’ You just film everything, and whatever makes the edit, then you see, then you send out releases. It’s like what we do for our show.”
Swift’s team responded to GQ’s inquiries about Kardashian’s comments, again stating that Swift knew nothing about the specifics of the song until hearing it after it was released.
“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,” the statement says. “However, that does not change the fact that much of what Kim is saying is incorrect. Kanye West and Taylor only spoke once on the phone while she was on vacation with her family in January of 2016 and they have never spoken since. Taylor has never denied that conversation took place. It was on that phone call that Kanye West also asked her to release the song on her Twitter account, which she declined to do. Kanye West never told Taylor he was going to use the term ‘that bitch’ in referencing her. A song cannot be approved if it was never heard. Kanye West never played the song for Taylor Swift. Taylor heard it for the first time when everyone else did and was humiliated. Kim Kardashian’s claim that Taylor and her team were aware of being recorded is not true, and Taylor cannot understand why Kanye West, and now Kim Kardashian, will not just leave her alone.”
