The 34-year-old pop superstar went to ground in 2016 after being branded a snake and a “liar” when a public dispute between her and Kardashian’s then-husband Kanye West led to the reality TV starreleasing a private telephone call between the pair – and Taylor appears to have brought the bad blood back to the surface by working Kim’s name into the title of a song on her new album The Tortured Poets Department.
In the track thanK you aIMee certain letters have been capped up to spell out the name “Kim” and the lyrics suggest Taylor is describing the aftermath of the pair’s fall out.
She sings: “When I picture my hometown / 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 ...
“All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’ / And I can’t forgive the way you made me feel / Screamed ‘F*** 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 Swift has hinted in a song on her new album The Tortured Poets Department that she still “can’t forgive” Kim Kardashian for their headline-grabbing feud. Photo / Getty Images
Swift concludes by confirming she’s changed the name of the woman she’s singing about – further fuelling speculation the track is about Kardashian.
She goes on to sing: “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.”
Swift is believed to have subsequently decamped to London where she spent time with her then-boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, and in a recent interview with Time magazine she claimed the incident ruined her life.
She said: “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar.
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. 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.”
She added: “[It was] a career death. Make no mistake – my career was taken away from me.”
Kanye West caused controversy in 2009 when he interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. Photo / AP
However, Swift returned a year later with her 2017 album Reputation which alluded to the previous year’s drama.
At the time of the 2020 release, Kardashian defended her decision to share the audio on social media.
In a post online, she wrote: “@taylorswift13 has chosen to reignite an old exchange ... I didn’t feel the need to comment a few days ago, and I’m actually really embarrassed and mortified to be doing it right now, but because she continues to speak on it, I feel I’m left without a choice but to respond because she is actually lying.”
