Taylor Swift’s Time Magazine Person of the Year cover interview was good, in that she dished out some interesting gossip, she spilled details about her relationship with Travis Kelce, and she took a victory lap for how powerful she is. On the other side, Taylor couldn’t help but reignite the 2016 feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. I was around for the original cycle of this and I have no desire to relitigate any of this sh-t, and it’s crazy to me that Taylor willingly went there and she’s still trying to rewrite what happened more than seven years ago. Kanye is Nazi trash, no doubt, and his career is mostly over and done with at this point. But as horrible as Kanye was and is, that doesn’t change the fact that Taylor lied and misrepresented. It was the first time anyone had ever called her out on such a huge scale. It changed her and she’s still trying to find a way to rescript it. Speaking of, TMZ had an update:

There’s a good reason Taylor Swift called out Kim Kardashian in TIME over a now 7-year-old phone call with Kanye West — it’s an incident for which Kim still has not apologized … TMZ has learned. Sources with direct knowledge tell us Kim has never said sorry to Taylor over the notorious “Famous” phone call between Taylor and Kanye in 2016 … the one Kim and Ye released, attempting to show Taylor was cool with the song’s racy line about her.

Remember, at the time of the track’s release, Taylor expressed outrage over Ye’s lyric … “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex // Why? I made that bitch famous.” In response to Taylor’s anger, Kim posted her version of the recorded phone call in an effort to prove Taylor understood exactly what the song would include. However, the full unedited version of the recorded call eventually came out, and it became clear Kanye had not revealed he’d refer to Taylor as a “bitch.”

Our sources say Kim’s never apologized to Taylor for the call — and even after the Time article, it’s still crickets.

Interestingly, we’re told Taylor would actually accept an apology from Kim on this issue, even all these years later, but only under one specific condition … it would have to be done publicly. As one source put it to us, a public shaming calls for a public “I’m sorry.”

Our sources say Taylor still feels like Kim and Kanye were in the wrong … and she was dumbfounded when Kim doubled down on her position even after the full, unedited version of their call got published.

From Kim’s POV — which she made clear in tweets at the time, and in subsequent interviews — the fact Taylor was looped in on the song, period, vindicated her and Kanye … but we’re told Taylor’s position has always been about the use of the word “bitch.”

Kim downplayed that in a GQ piece … saying all rappers use that term, and that it was NBD — and while this might sound like a lot of hair-splitting … we’re told Taylor still feels she was seriously wronged in the framing of all that, something she touched on in her TIME interview.

Again, we’re told Taylor is still willing to bury the hatchet with Kim — who has since divorced Kanye — but at this point, our sources say the 2 women have no relationship.

[From TMZ]

As I said, I have no desire to relitigate any of this, but here goes: while the full call revealed that Taylor was never informed about the word “bitch,” the call proved that Kanye did politely seek Taylor’s permission to use her name lyrically and she agreed. Before Kim revealed the recording of the call, Taylor had claimed that Kanye never sought her approval for anything, that he was “taking credit” for her fame, etc. It was only after the call was revealed that the issue became all about the use of “bitch.” As I said, Kanye is trash. But Taylor lied. Both things can be and are true. As for Taylor’s people running to TMZ and trying to pressure Kim into making a public apology… lmao. I hope Kim ignores her, but who knows. Currently, the Swifties have swarmed onto Kim’s social media and they’re flooding her comments with snake emojis. Y’all really weren’t around for the original cycle of this.

Kim Kardashian’s Instagram account is being flooded with snake emojis and Taylor Swift's ‘reputation’ GIFs. pic.twitter.com/qcc29Vqozj

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) December 7, 2023

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.