When the historians look back at the year 2020, I have a feeling they’re going to be confused. They’ll see a global pandemic, with massive lifestyle changes, economic upheaval, and great loss. But right in the midst of it, they’ll see everyone talking about something else: a video of a phone call that happened in 2016. Ladies and gentlemen, Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift are taking shots at each other on social media, and I hate to say it, but this is my happy place.
As we all know, way back in July 2016, Kim Kardashian posted a video of her husband Kanye West on the phone with Taylor Swift. On the call, Swift seemingly approves West’s controversial lyric about having sex with her, despite Taylor publicly taking offense with the lyric. In case you’re wondering, I actually wrote the original Betches article about the phone call way back in 2016, so I feel like we’ve really come full circle together.
Aside from some subtle shots at each other in more recent lyrics, I really thought this feud was done and dusted, but lo and behold, I WAS WRONG! Over the weekend, someone leaked an extended video of the phone call, which provides a lot more context to what actually happened. First of all, I feel like someone needs to check Kris Jenner’s computer history, because I feel like there’s at least a 50/50 chance this leak is coming directly from her. Even if Kim Kardashian doesn’t come out of this looking amazing, there just so happens to be a new season of Keeping Up premiering… THIS WEEK. There might be a pandemic right now, but Kris Jenner is going to get her publicity, god damn it.
So let’s get into the actual video. Really, most of the conversation is pretty hard to follow, because Kanye West’s mind is possibly the most chaotic place in the world. He rambles about vibes, and how “Famous” is going to win Grammys, and how people are accusing him of bullying Nike, but the real interesting stuff boils down to a couple specific parts of the conversation.
As we knew before, Kanye shared his lyric about having sex with Taylor, and she really wasn’t mad about it. He actually told her two different versions of the lyric, one of which (“I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex”) is even more graphic than the version that made it into the final song. Taylor actually seems relieved, saying that the lyric is “not mean,” and she thought it would be way worse. But the really crucial thing here is that Kanye never asked Taylor about the line “I made that bitch famous.” He phrases it as “I made that girl famous,” and Taylor seems okay with it, but the word “bitch” never came into the conversation.
So. Where does this leave us? Of course, the Taylor Swift fans feel totally vindicated, and the Kanye West fans feel like the longer video doesn’t really change things. Honestly, I feel like most of the fans have already decided how they feel, and this video won’t change much, but that hasn’t stopped Taylor and Kim from coming for each other online. Late on Monday night, Taylor posted an Instagram story, in which she addressed the video in a backhanded way that I’m kind of obsessed with.
This is god-tier petty. Taylor basically pulled a “I’m not gonna talk about her outfit, even though it’s the ugliest outfit I’ve ever seen and I would never wear something so ugly, but I’m not gonna talk about it.” This is such a Real Housewives move, and it works. But while she’s keeping her cool, the tone of this also shows that she’s 100% not over it. She will literally be 80 years old and still mad at Kanye, and I love that for her. Oh, and the swipe up link goes to Feeding America, so she took the absolute high road. We have no choice but to stan.
In response to Taylor’s post, Mrs. Kim Kardashian West had some THOUGHTS. She popped up on Instagram stories and Twitter, posting a series of messages addressing the situation. First, she dragged Taylor for “reignit an old exchange”, saying that it feels “very self-serving given the suffering millions of real victims are facing right now.” Okay Lady Liberty, cool it with the grand statements. Y’all are both tweeting about something insignificant that happened years ago.
After reiterating that she didn’t even want to address the new leak, she flat-out accused Taylor Swift of being liar. She is adamant that no one ever claimed that Taylor approved the use of the word “bitch”, and that the actual issue was that Taylor’s publicist said that Kanye didn’t call her to ask for permission in general. This seems like a technicality, but there’s no argument that the phone conversation didn’t happen. I just sat through it for 20 minutes—you’re welcome.
One of Taylor’s big claims about the video has always been that it was somehow edited to manipulate the truth. Kim reasserts that she didn’t edit the video in any way, she just chose a few clips to post on Snapchat “to make my point.” Damn, this has been going on for so long that Snapchat was still a relevant social media platform when it all started. While I agree with Kim that the full video doesn’t really change the narrative here, choosing 30 seconds of a 20-minute video is, in and of itself, editing.
I know Kim is more familiar with the Facetune variety of editing, but this is like TV show editing. Just think of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. After filming them sitting around eating salads for 100 hours, then the EDITORS go through the footage and find 40 minutes of watchable content. Kim, you of all people should know how this works!
She also hit back at Taylor’s “illegal recording” claim, saying that all artists document the process of putting an album together. She points out that Taylor Swift recently released a Netflix documentary full of the same type of footage, which isn’t a bad point, I guess. She also claims that this video would have gone “in the trash” had this whole drama with the phone call’s existence not started in the first place.
Kanye has documented the making of all of his albums for his personal archive, however has never released any of it for public consumption & the call between the two of them would have remained private or would have gone in the trash had she not lied & forced me to defend him.
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) March 24, 2020
That’s cool, but doesn’t change the fact that recording the call in the first place was illegal. However, unless Taylor is going to sue Kim and Kanye for recording her without her consent, I don’t see why we have to keep bringing up that issue—the video already is out, it is what it is, and nobody can unring that bell.
To finish things off, Kim declared that this is the last time she’ll speak on this, “because honestly, nobody cares.” My initial instinct was to agree that no one cares anymore, but then I realized that I just furiously typed 1,000 words about this. What can I say, I still care! But if we’re being real, this should probably be the last time we talk about this, because there are truly so many more important things happening in the world. I know that Kim isn’t one to sit back and let people talk sh*t about her, but it just seems like she should really stop adding fuel to the fire.
So, will Kim and Taylor finally actually put this to rest (along with Kanye)? I’m hopeful, but nothing would surprise me at this point. At the very least, I expect Taylor to have one thinly veiled dig at Kanye on each of her albums until the end of time, and I also expect Kris Jenner to drop more breadcrumbs of drama in the future, because that’s just how she rolls. It just feels right. Will this be the last time I speak on this? Tbh, probably not—stay tuned!
Images: Dejui Eiraqius / YouTube; taylorswift / Instagram; kimkardashian / Twitter
