Taylor Swift is taking the time to reflect on what is arguably her most life-changing experience. Earlier this week, news broke that Taylor was named Person of the Year by Time magazine, and in her cover interview, she opened up about the infamous phone call with Kanye West that led to what she called "a career death." After Kim Kardashian, who was married to Kanye at the time, shared an edited version of the phone call designed to frame Taylor as a liar, the backlash was quick. Social media turned against the singer, flooding the comments of her Instagram posts with snakes. But what was really going on behind the scenes back then?
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Taylor called the edited phone call 'manufactured.'
"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," Swift described in the Time interview, adding, "Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me."
In case you don't remember, here's what happened.
In Kanye’s song "Famous," he rapped the line, "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. / Why? I made that b–ch famous," along with including a naked dummy made to look like her in the music video for the song.
Facing major backlash from Taylor's fanbase, Kanye later claimed that he had gotten her permission. But Taylor claimed that she had not consented to the lyric, which led to Kim releasing a video on Snapchat of the phone call that intended to prove otherwise.
Taylor revealed that the backlash took her to a really dark place mentally.
"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," Swift revealed.
After the release of Reputation in 2017, she said that she "thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life."
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Kim has yet to apologize for her behavior.
Her words about the incident have given her fans a new level of vitriol toward Kim's involvement in the deterioration of Swift’s mental health. A source told TMZ that Kim has yet to actually apologize to Taylor seven years later. The source also added that Taylor would still accept an apology, but it would have to be public.
Swifties immediately fought back against Kim.
As BuzzFeed reported, Swifties are now flooding Kim’s Instagram posts with snake emojis and have taken to X (formerly Twitter) to urge her to do the right thing.
"The world collectively cancelled Taylor in 2016 for telling the truth," one person commented. "Meanwhile, K-m is out here thriving after spouting a life-altering lie. If Swifties decide they're her consequence, who are we to stop them?"
"Kim Kardashian will never live this down no matter how many times she wants to use Taylor’s music on Instagram stories or in the background of whatever she’s doing now," another wrote.
"The fact that Kim Kardashian is so ‘We need to move on that was so long ago, I’m over it’ what you did was detrimental and traumatic to one of the worlds most kind famous people," another added. "Of course you’re over it you weren’t the one hurt."
