That all ended last year when Kanye released a song which included lyrics about Taylor, which she claimed not to know about. Kanye’s wife, Kim Kardashian, then released a recorded video of the conversation that Taylor and Kanye had had about the song prior to its release, prompting her fans to go after Taylor calling her a snake and swiftly (see what we did there) ending any chance of a reconciliation for good.
Taylor’s rep at the time said, “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 bitch famous.'”
Now, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Taylor is finally ready to give the back story, revealing everything that went on behind the scenes over the years. “The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to [the phone call]. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a bitch. 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.”
“I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me—because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me,” she continued, revealing the two would go to dinner and spend time together.
“I was so happy, because he would say really nice things about my music. It just felt like I was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19.” She went on to talk about the 2015 MTV VMA awards where she presented Kanye with a Vanguard Award, saying that it was his idea for her to present it and then on the night he acted like he had nothing to do with it. “I was so stoked that he asked me that,” she said. “And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, “MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!” And I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realised 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 shit. And I was so upset.”
She goes on to say that Kanye sent her a big bunch of flowers and she decided to move on and continue their friendship, saying she was really touched that he would be respectful and call her to tell her about the line in his new song. She confirmed the line was “me and Taylor might still have sex.”
“And then when I heard the song, I was like, “I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.” And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake’s family and their lives. It’s the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don’t want to just talk about negative shit all day, but it’s the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened.”
This article originally appeared on InStyle Australia