Taylor Swift Offers Rare Insight Into Aftermath of Kim Kardashian’s ‘Fully Manufactured Frame Job’
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA FEBRUARY 5: 65th GRAMMY AWARDS Taylor Swift arrivals of fashion and creatively weird images at the 65th Grammy Awards held at the Crytpo.com Arena on February 5, 2023. -- (Photo by Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Taylor Swift is a mastermind when it comes to subtly responding to events in her life through her lyrics, but it's much more rare for her to offer direct.
But in a candid new interview with TIME's Sam Lansky as the publication's Person of the Year, the "Karma" songstress is offering new insight into some of the more infamous clashes she's been involved in, specifically the pre-Reputation disaster of Kim Kardashian's carefully edited, illegally recorded phone call framing the singer as a liar, and the immediate aftermath.
If you need a little refresher, in 2016, the reality star's then-husband Kanye West called up Swift ahead of the release of his song "Famous," which featured insulting and crude lyrics directed at her. Kardashian filmed the exchange, in which West ran one of the lines by her but neglected to share the entire inclusion. After Swift slammed the lyrics upon their release, Kardashian uploaded an edited version of the video, making it seem like Swift had okayed them and igniting a new feud between the two women while furthering the pre-existing one between Swift and West.
It sparked an intense backlash against the touring artist, who famously disappeared in the year following as her reputation was trashed left and right. Eventually, she wiped her social media presence before announcing her sixth studio album, aptly titled reputation.
“I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots,” Swift recalled, as people looked at everything from conspiracy theories to media exposure through a hypercritical lens. After she was labeled a "Snake" over the phone call debacle, she felt like it was the death of her career.
“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,” she said. “That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before."
She was so low she moved across the pond to a foreign country, where she rented a home she didn't leave 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,” she admitted, expecting the turn of events to "define [her] negatively for the rest of [her] life.”
Later in the interview, after also touching on the success of her rerecorded album—put out to take back ownership of her art after it was sold to Scooter Braun, another notable foe of Swift's, whom she believes had "nefarious" intentions with the masters—the singer reflected on the fickle nature of life, both in regards to her own career, and her "enemies."
“Nothing is permanent,” she acknowledged. “So I’m very careful to be grateful every second that I get to be doing this at this level, because I’ve had it taken away from me before." As a result, she's learned a valuable lesson over the years: "My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making...art.”
Another critical insight? "...there’s no point in actively trying to quote-unquote defeat your enemies,” she added. “Trash takes itself out every single time.”
Next: Taylor Swift Finally Confirms When She and Travis Kelce Became a Couple
