Taylor Swift is known for weaving her personal experiences into her music, and it seems she’s once again drawing from her tumultuous past with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. The iconic feud, which dates back to 2016, appears to have resurfaced with the release of a live recording of Swift’s song thanK you aIMee. The subtle yet pointed changes in the song’s title and lyrics have sparked speculation that the Look What You Made Me Do singer isn’t ready to bury the hatchet just yet. The original track, thanK you aIMee, ignited buzz when fans noticed the capitalized letters spelling out ’KIM,’ seemingly taking a swipe at Kardashian.
As per Mirror, the lyrics themselves hinted at the tension, “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.” But in this newly released live version, Swift made an even bolder move. The song’s title now reads thank You aimEe, with the capitalized “Y” and “E” drawing attention to West’s new name, Ye.
The lyrics too, have been tweaked, with lines, “Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman, but she used to say she wished that you were dead… 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.”
It is worth noting that back then, when the original track was first released, an insider close to Kardashian revealed, “Taylor has humiliated Kim, and she knows that there is nothing she can do about it. Kim got what she feared was coming to her eventually, and is now backed in a corner because she knows Taylor’s army will destroy her if she says anything.”
So, quite intriguingly, this latest development comes just as Swift scored a professional victory over West. Her album The Tortured Poets Department managed to block West’s latest release, Vultures 2, from debuting at the top of the Billboard 200 chart (a prominent moment given that all of West’s previous 11 albums had achieved the number one spot.) The timing of Swift’s new live recording and its provocative changes seem almost too coincidental to ignore.
As per Daily Mail, the tension between Swift and the West/Kardashian camp is far from new. It all began when West infamously interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, but the feud peaked its level in 2016 with the release of West’s song Famous, which included the controversial lyrics, “I feel like me and Taylor Swift might still have sex. Why? I made that b***h famous.”
Although West claimed that he had Swift’s permission, Swift ferociously denied it. Moreover, Kardashian slammed Swift back then and said, “To be clear, the only issue I ever had around the situation was that Taylor lied through her publicist who stated that ‘Kanye never called to ask for permission…’ They clearly spoke so I let you all see that. Nobody ever denied the word “b****” was used without her permission.”
Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Larry Busacca
Swift has since spoken openly about how the incident affected her mental health. She confessed, “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.”
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