Taylor Swift opens up on feuds with Kanye West, Katy Perry

Taylor Swift has opened up about the moment she realised Kanye West wasn’t who she thought he was, right as she had her arm around the rapper’s wife.

Taylor Swift on the cover of Rolling Stone. Picture: Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

Taylor Swift has opened up about some of the ups and downs of her career in a candid new interview.

Swift, 29, addressed her much-publicised dispute with former label boss Scott Borchetta, who sold her entire back catalogue to music manager against her will this year.

The enusing public stoush quickly turned ugly, with Borchetta even accusing Swift of refusing to play charity concerts in the wake of the Parkland shooting and Manchester bombing.

“Unbelievable. Here’s the thing: Everyone in my team knew if Scooter Braun brings us something, do not bring it to me. The fact that those two are in business together after the things he said about Scooter Braun — it’s really hard to shock me. And this was utterly shocking. These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work. And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of scotch to themselves. Because they pulled one over on me and got this done so sneakily that I didn’t even see it coming. And I couldn’t say anything about it,” she said.

Elsewhere in the revealing interview with Rolling Stone, Swift says she put up with Kanye West because she wanted his approval.

Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian at the Grammy Awards in 2015. Picture: Getty

West and Swift initially had issues after he jumped on stage at the 2009 VMAs to say that Beyonce actually deserved the award for Best Music Video. The pair made amends but fell out again after he released his song Famous, in which he sung the lyrics “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that b**ch famous.”

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Kanye West (L) jumps onstage after Taylor Swift (C) won the Best Female Video award during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Picture: Getty

“The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to it. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when (Kanye) called me a b**ch. That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I,” Swift told Rolling Stone.

“I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me — because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me. When someone doesn’t respect you so loudly and says you literally don’t deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him.”

Taylor Swift. Picture: Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

“But the 2015 VMAs come around. He’s getting the Vanguard Award. He called me up beforehand … and he’s like, ‘I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me,’ and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, ‘MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!’

“I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realised he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk sh*t. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go.”

Taylor Swift, Jay Z and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian at the 2015 Grammys. Picture: Getty

“He sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologise. And I was like, ‘You know what? I really don’t want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I’m just going to move past this.’ So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song,” she said.

“I was like, ‘OK, good. We’re back on good terms.’ And then when I heard the song, I was like, ‘I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.”

Taylor Swift. Picture: Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone’s October 2019 cover with Swift. Picture: Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

Swift also detailed how she made amends with Katy Perry after what she calls a “miscommunication”.

The singers were embroiled in a feud ever since Swift claimed Perry stole three of her backing dancers from her 2012 tour. The pair patched things up earlier this year and Perry appeared in Swift’s song, You Need To Calm Down, in which they hugged things out.

Swift says when the pair reconnected they realised that their star signs may have impacted why they clashed.

“We were talking about our signs because we had this really, really long talk when we were reconnecting and stuff. And I remember in the long talk, she was like, ‘If we had one glass of white wine right now, we’d both be crying.’ Because we were drinking tea,” she told Rolling Stone.

Katy Perry and Taylor Swift have made amends. Picture: Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS

Katy Perry and Taylor Swift have hugged their issues out. Picture: Supplied

“We were talking about how we’ve had miscommunications with people in the past, not even specifically with each other. She’s like, ‘I’m a Scorpio. Scorpios just strike when they feel threatened.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m an archer. We literally stand back, assess the situation, process how we feel about it, raise a bow, pull it back, and fire.’

“So it’s completely different ways of processing pain, confusion, misconception. And oftentimes I’ve had this delay in feeling something that hurts me and then saying that it hurts me. Do you know what I mean? And so I can understand how people in my life would have been like, ‘Whoa, I didn’t know that was how you felt.’ Because it takes me a second.”

Taylor Swift. Picture: Erik Madigan Heck for Rolling Stone

Originally published as Taylor Swift opens up on feuds with Kanye West, Katy Perry