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Taylor Swift is reflecting on the infamous leaked phone call between her and Kanye West in 2016. On Wednesday, December 6th, it was revealed that Swift was named Time's 2023 Person of the Year, and her cover story interview is full of anecdotes from her illustrious career.
One of those anecdotes was the scandal surrounding Kanye's song "Famous" from his 2016 album The Life of Pablo. "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that b— famous," Ye raps in the opening verse of the song.
"I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots," Swift said of that era, in which the public opinion of her had soured. It didn't help when Kanye later claimed that the pop star had consented to the vulgar lyric which she denied. Then, Kim Kardashian, who was still married to Kanye at the time, released a video of a conversation between Kanye and Swift that made it seem like the singer had been on board with the song.
The scandal made headlines and people online began calling Swift a snake, an image that she embraced and reclaimed for her Reputation era in 2017. "Make no mistake—my career was taken away from me," she said.
Swift went on to call out Kardashian, "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. 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.”