Kim Kardashian West releases footage of Taylor Swift giving her “Famous” blessing
Last night, Kim Kardashian West used the tools at her disposal (social media, ever-present cameras) to challenge fellow celebrity Taylor Swift. The reality TV star and mobile app mogul posted a video to Snapchat, documenting a phone call her husband, Kanye West, had with Taylor Swift about his song “Famous,” in which he raps “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why? I made that bitch famous.” Swift, on speaker phone, and West appear to have a pleasant conversation about the “sex” line, in which Swift’s principal concern is that she’s risking “overexposure.” (Um, okay.)
The video seemingly contradicts the stance Swift has taken on “Famous” for months now. When Kanye unleashed the track back in February, Swift’s rep 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.’”
But in a cover story for GQ, Kardashian West claimed to have footage that reveals Swift’s complicity, and that the pop star wanted it destroyed. In response, Swift’s rep issued a lengthy statement to the magazine, which read in part: “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.”
Well, Kardashian West has opted not to leave Swift alone, and has shared a recording of the phone call in which the pop world’s current girl power champion saying the “sex” lyric is “like a compliment” and is “obviously very tongue-in-cheek.” All the while, West defers to Swift, talking about his “responsibility to [her] as a friend” and how “relationships are more important than punchlines.” It seems like a perfectly cordial phone call. Swift even gushes about how many Instagram likes the flowers Kanye sent her merited. (Is this what celebrities talk about when they think no one is listening?)
Predictably, Swift is not happy. She maintains, as she always has, that she never heard the part of the song in which West refers to her as “that bitch” and calls Kardashian West’s actions “character assassination.”
That moment when Kanye West secretly records your phone call, then Kim posts it on the Internet. pic.twitter.com/4GJqdyykQu
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 18, 2016