Taylor Swift drops Kim Kardashian diss track on 'The Tortured Poets Department.' Here's how 'thanK you aIMee' is reviving their feud.
Swift sings about a "spray-tanned" school bully named Aimee — and the track not-so-subtly confirms that person is "KIM."
Taylor Swift hinted months ago she wasn't over Kim Kardashian's "fully manufactured frame job" that had her canceled "within an inch of my life." (The 2016 clash was over whether Swift approved a controversial line in a Kanye West song.) Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised then that Swift's double album not only takes aim at Matty Healy and Joe Alwyn, but also the reality star.
Swift dropped the deluxe version of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which features 15 surprise songs. Two songs seem to reference Kardashian, with one song literally calling her out: "thanK you aIMee." (The letters "KIM" are capitalized.)
Here's everything you need to know about the tracks, 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 opens by painting Aimee as a school bully: "When I picture my hometown/ There's a bronze spray-tanned statue of you/ And a plaque underneath it/ That threatens to push me down the stairs, at our school."
The singer croons about "headlines" Aimee wrote in the local paper and says "it wasn't a fair fight."
"All that time you were throwin' punches, I was buildin' somethin'/ And I couldn't wait to show you it was real/ Screamed "F*** you, Aimee" to the night sky, as the blood was gushin'/ But I can't forget the way you made me heal," Swift sings in the chorus.
Swift's management team tweeted one of the lyrics with a GIF from the Reputation era, the album inspired by her feud with Kardashian and West.
Screamed, ‘fucK you aIMee’ to the night sky #TTPDTheAnthology pic.twitter.com/odZ6c7Ycxa
— Taylor Nation (@taylornation13) April 19, 2024
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 any real defining clues/ And one day, your kid comes home singin'/ A song that only us two is gonna know is about you."
“I don't think you've changed much —And so I changed your name, and any real defining clues
And one day, your kid comes home singin' —A song that only us two is gonna know is about you”
MY GOD Taylor Swift went in on Kim Kardashian.
Just ????????#thanKyouaIMee— Will Compton (@_willcompton) April 19, 2024
not a swiftie, per se, 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 any real defining clues and one day, your kid comes home singin' a song that only us two is gonna know is about you.” pic.twitter.com/T3oo8P7MNt— Liana Ruppert (@DirtyEffinHippy) April 19, 2024
Swift seems to reference Kardashian on 'Cassandra' too
In Greek mythology, the god Apollo was in love with Cassandra ("she who entangles men"). Apollo "granted her the power of prophecy but, when she rejected him, 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 she gave West the OK to include a vulgar lyric about her on the song "Famous."
On "Cassandra," track 27 on The Tortured Poets Department: 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 regret to say/ Do you believe me now?"
Snake imagery is synonymous with the Reputation era. Kardashian — and a whole lot of people on social media — dubbed Swift a snake after the infamous phone call leak in 2016, imagery Swift reclaimed on her album.
Wait it's legit National Snake Day?!?!?They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days! ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
— Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) July 17, 2016
About that phone call heard around the world...
Need a refresher as to what happened in 2016? We have 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 pictured together on multiple occasions.
But their friendship came crashing down in 2016 when West name-checked Swift in his song "Famous": "I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that bitch famous." West claimed he got Swift's permission for the lyric. Swift admitted they spoke, but that the word 'bitch' was never discussed. Enter The Kardashians star.
Kardashian posted videos on Snapchat of a phone call between West and Swift in which she appears to approve the line. Swift said the clips were 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 narrative, one that 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 gave the approval for the line and that the whole call was recorded.
On an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians a month later, Kardashian sat down with momager Kris Jenner who wanted the two to make up.
"What would happen if you just called Taylor up and say 'What happened? How did this go so south?' I guess I don't understand the motivation to flip … maybe she took it the wrong way. My advice would be to give Taylor Swift a call," Jenner said.
"Thank you for your lovely advice," Kardashian replied, "but I'm not going to take it."
In 2017, Kardashian confirmed she had not spoken to Swift since the exchange. When Swift dropped her lead single off Reputation, "Look What You Made Me Do," she made it very clear there would be no forgiving the former power couple.
Swift spoke in detail about the scandal in November when she was declared Time's Person of the Year. "I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life," she shared.
"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," Swift recalled. "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."
Swift said she looks back at the moment as "a career death."
"Make no mistake — my career was taken away from me," she added, noting she was "canceled within an inch of my life and sanity."