Taylor Swift Opens Up About Events Leading Up To Infamous Kanye West Call

Taylor Swift sat down with Rolling Stone and opened up about her years-long rocky relationship with Kanye West.

The 29-year-old singer shared her side of the story, and gave new exclusive details about “the events that led up” to the infamous phone call where the two discussed the lyrics to West’s song “Famous.”

There has always been controversy around the claim that West ran the lyric “I made that Bitch famous” by Swift before the release, which Taylor has denied. In a recorded phone call released by West’s wife, Kim Kardashian in 2016, the pair can be heard discussing the lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex,” but after Kardashian West released the call, Swift hit back on Instagram, reiterating that West, 42, had never told her he was going to call her “that bitch” in the song.

“The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to it,” Swift maintained to Rolling Stone of 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 [West] called me a bitch.”

“That was not just a singular event,” she explained. “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.”

Swift revealed that she did think the two had “reconnected” in the years since their legendary run-in at the 2009 MTV Music Awards, when he interrupted her acceptance speech to praise Beyoncé.

“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 said. “When someone doesn’t respect you so loudly and says you literally don’t deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, ‘This guy who’s antagonizing me, I just want his approval.’ But that’s where I was.”

Swift claimed that she and Yeezy developed a rapport and would even “go to dinner and stuff,” as the rapper was extremely complimentary of her music. She alleged that, ahead of the 2015 VMAs, West — who she said “can be the sweetest” — called her to ask her to present him with the Video Vanguard Award at the upcoming awards show, which she happily obliged.

Swift claimed that Kanye was less than warm towards her on stage after she presented him with the award when he criticized MTV for publicizing that Taylor was going to present him with the award as a ploy for more ratings.

She described the scene to Rolling Stone, saying “I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced,” Swift said. “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 s—.” 

Swift did end the interview by saying that she was tired of rehashing the entire “feud.” 

“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,” she said.