Taylor Swift hinted months ago that she wasn’t over Kim Kardashian’s “completely manufactured framework” that got her canceled “within an inch of my life.” (The 2016 clash was over whether Swift approved of a controversial line in a Kanye West song.) So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Swift’s double album takes aim not just at Matty Healy and Joe Alwyn, but also at the reality star.
Swift dropped the deluxe version The Department of Martyred Poets: The Anthology, with 15 surprise songs. Two songs seem to reference Kardashian, with one song literally calling out to her: “thanK you aIMee.” (The letters “KIM” are capitalized.)
Here’s everything you need to know about the songs, a look back at what happened eight years ago and what the two have said about their feud.
‘thanK you aIMee’ is about a spray-tanned bully
Swift begins by painting Aimee as a school bully: “When I imagine my hometown / There’s a bronze, spray-painted statue of you / And a plaque underneath / That threatens to push me down the stairs, at our school.”
The singer sings about “headlines” Aimee wrote in the local paper, saying, “It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“All the time you were throwing punches, I was building something/And I couldn’t wait to show you it was real/Screamed ‘F*** you, Aimee’ into the night sky, as the blood flowed “/But I can’t forget the way you made me heal,” Swift sings in the chorus.
Swift’s management team tweeted one of the texts with a GIF of the Reputation era, the album inspired by her feud with Kardashian and West.
But the line that really set social media on fire is: “I don’t think you’ve changed much/ And so I changed your name, and all the real defining cues/ And one day your kid comes home singing/ A song which only the two of us will know is about you.”
‘I don’t think you’ve changed much. And so I changed your name, and all the real defining clues
And one day your child will come home singing – a song that only the two of us will know is about you.
MY GOD Taylor Swift took issue with Kim Kardashian.
Just 🤌🏻🤌🏻#thanKyouaIMee
— Will Compton (@_willcompton) April 19, 2024
not necessarily a Swiftie, but officially obsessed with ‘thanK you aIMmee’. that shit hit 🤌🏻
‘I don’t think you’ve changed much
and so I changed your name, and all the real defining clues, and one day your kid comes home and sings a song that only the two of us will know is about you. pic.twitter.com/T3oo8P7MNt— Liana Ruppert (@DirtyEffinHippy) April 19, 2024
Swift also appears to reference Kardashian in ‘Cassandra’
In Greek mythology, the god Apollo was in love with Cassandra (“she who ensnares men”). Apollo “granted her the power of prophecy, but when she rejected him, she sabotaged that power with a curse that no one would believe her predictions,” according to the Brooklyn Museum. Swift has long denied Kardashian’s claim that she gave West permission to include a vulgar lyric about her in the song “Famous.”
“Cassandra” is number 27 The Department of Martyred Poets: The Anthology, Swift sings, “So they killed Cassandra first ’cause she feared the worst / And tried to tell the town / So they filled my cell with snakes, I’m sorry to say / Do you believe me now?”
Snake images are synonymous with the Reputation era. Kardashian — and many people on social media — called Swift a snake after the infamous 2016 phone leak, images that Swift reclaimed on her album.
Wait, it’s actually National Snake Day?!?!?They have holidays for everyone, I mean everything these days! 🐋 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) July 17, 2016
About that phone call that was heard around the world…
Need a refresher on what happened in 2016? We’ve got you covered.
Years after West interrupted Swift onstage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the two made up. Swift even presented West with MTV’s Video Vanguard Award in 2015. Their ‘friendship’ coincided with the rapper’s relationship with Kardashian and the trio was photographed together several times.
But their friendship collapsed in 2016 when West mentioned Swift’s name in his song “Famous”: “I feel like Taylor and I might still have sex.” Why? I made that bitch famous.” West claimed he got Swift’s permission for the lyrics. Swift admitted that they spoke, but the word “bitch” never came up. Enter The Kardashians star.
Kardashian posted videos on Snapchat of a phone conversation between West and Swift in which she appears to approve of the line. Swift said the clips have been edited.
“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that b****’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened,” she wrote on social media after Kardashian’s post. “I would very much like to be excluded from this story, a story I have never asked to be a part of since 2009.”
What have Kardashian and Swift said about the feud over the years?
In 2016, Kardashian doubled down in an interview with GQ that Swift approved of the line and that the entire conversation was recorded.
In an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians a month later, Kardashian sat down with mother-maker Kris Jenner, who wanted the two to make up.
“What would happen if you just called Taylor and said, ‘What happened? How did this go so south?’ I guess I don’t understand the motivation for turning around… maybe she took it the wrong way. My advice would be to call Taylor Swift,” Jenner said.
“Thanks for your great advice,” Kardashian replied, “but I’m not going to take it.”
In 2017, Kardashian confirmed that she had not spoken to Swift since the exchange. When Swift dropped her first single Reputation, “Look What You Made Me Do,” she made it very clear that there would be no forgiveness for the former power couple.
Swift spoke extensively about the scandal in November when she was named Time’s Person of the Year. “I thought that moment of setback would negatively define me for the rest of my life,” she said.
“You have a completely fabricated frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, that Kim Kardashian edited and then broadcast to everyone telling everyone I was a liar,” Swift recalled. “That took me psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved abroad. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to make phone calls. I pushed most people out of my life because I no one trusted anymore.
Swift said she looks back on this moment as “a career death.”
“Make no mistake, my career was taken from me,” she added, noting that she was “canceled within an inch of my life and sanity.”