Looks like Taylor Swift and Kanye West are never, ever getting back together.
West’s new album, The Life Of Pablo, has ignited a new controversy between the rapper and pop superstar Swift.
West debuted his album at the Yeezy Season 3 fashion show at Madison Square Garden in New York on Thursday. The album included a song called, Famous, in which he called the Bad Blood singer a “bitch” and said he made her famous.
On his Twitter account, he said the lyric was not an insult. “I did not diss Taylor Swift and I’ve never dissed her,” he wrote.
“I called Taylor and had a hour long convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings,” he wrote.
The line refers to the 2009 Grammy awards, when West took to the stage and interrupted her acceptance speech to say: “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time.” The incident prompted President Barack Obama to call West a “jackass”. But the two apparently put differences aside and she introduced him when he won the video vanguard award at the 2015 VMAs. West later sent Swift dozens of white roses and she called him her BFF (Best Friend Forever).
That is, until now.
Tree Paine, Swift’s publicist, said in a statement that West did not ask Swift for approval.
“Kanye did not call for approval, but to ask Taylor to release his single Famous on her Twitter account,” the statement said. “She declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric.”
West defended his use of the word “bitch,” saying it was an endearing term in hip hop.
Meanwhile, Swift’s friends have come to her defence on social media. Taylor Swift’s brother, Austin, posted an Instagram video of him throwing Yeezy shoes in a trashcan.
The model Gigi Hadid, a close friend of Swift, who was at the event, tweeted: “My attendance somewhere does not mean I agree with everything being said in the music playing there. My friends know of my loyalty.”
The controversial businessman Martin Shkreli managed to insert himself into the evening’s events, too. Fresh from citing the fifth amendment, which gives a person the right not to say anything that might incriminate them, when asked by a congressional hearing about his purchase for $2 million (Dh7.3 million) of the Wu-Tang Clan’s one-off album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, he offered to buy the rights to The Life of Pablo.
Shkreli tweeted West, attaching a photo of a letter, in which he said: “I have been a tremendous fan of your music for many years. Specifically, the album The College Dropout inspired me to succeed at a young age.
“I am writing to you in hopes of convincing you to withhold the release of your forthcoming studio album. Instead of releasing this product for your millions of fans, I ask you to sell this recording solely to me, for the price of $10 million. I believe you (and your partners) will find this financial arrangement more attractive than your current course of action.”
West is due to perform on TV sketch show Saturday Night Live this weekend to promote his new album The Life of Pablo. It was not clear on Friday whether he would attend the Grammys on Monday.
